Scott Styris picks Fleming the captain over MS Dhoni — here’s why

Most cricketers would consider themselves lucky if they played under one legendary captain, but former New Zealand all-rounder Scott Styris had the privilege of playing under three all-timers in Stephen Fleming, MS Dhoni and Adam Gilchrist. 

While he played two matches under the leadership of Dhoni in Chennai Super Kings (CSK), and 10 matches under the leadership of Gilchrist in Deccan Chargers, the Brisbane born played a whopping 152 international matches under Fleming’s captaincy. In fact, it was under Fleming’s leadership that Styris made both his ODI and Test debut. 

Considering the role Fleming played in moulding him, Styris, speaking on Unwind with Cricket.com, picked out the former New Zealand skipper as the best captain he’s played under.

“You’re asking me to pick between a Lamborghini, Ferrari and an Aston Martin. I’m going to go with Stephen Fleming solely because I’ve played all my career under him. In contrast, I only played a couple of games for Chennai Super Kings (CSK). Solely based on volume of work, I’ll go with Stephen Fleming over MS,” Styris said, speaking on Unwind with Cricket.com.

“All three were the same style of captaincy where they were intelligent, said the right thing at the right time, articulate with the way they got their message across and they knew the game so well. They related to all the players so well. All three are as good a captains as I’ve seen,” he further added.

Styris won two IPL titles, the first of which came in IPL 2009 under the captaincy of Gilchrist. The 49-year-old revealed how, at times, Gilchrist’s brutally honest assessment and straightforward talks did not go down well with a lot of Indian players.

“Gilly was awesome as well, I loved playing under him for the same reason. The Australian mentality where he would get straight into you and fire a bullet between the eyes if you deserved it. Not a lot of Indian players liked that when it came their way but that’s the Australian way of dealing with things.”

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