‘Watch his innings, try and learn from him,’ Bangladesh allrounder looks up to MS Dhoni

Bangladesh’s Mahmudullah has spoken about his admiration towards MS Dhoni and hopes to successfully emulate the former India captain’s ability to anchor games. The Bangladesh allrounder revealed he spends his time watching clips of Dhoni, hoping to pick up nuances of his batting.

“I’m a huge fan of MS Dhoni, the way he controls himself. He also batted at five-six for the India team and whenever I sit idle, I try to watch his innings, even watch live games of his. And try to learn how he composes himself in the game,” the 34-year-old said during a live FB chat on Cricfrenzy.com.

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Like Dhoni, Mahmudullah has played innings where he’s successfully finished off chases. Being a middle-order batsman himself, Mahmudullah realises the need to absorb pressure to pull off chases, and he can think of no one better than Dhoni, who’s made a career out of finishing matches for India.

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“It is not easy having 50 plus average in ODI cricket for so many matches and having a strike rate of 90 plus, it’s amazing and the way he controls the game till the last, similarly I also have to bat at five-six so I try to learn these things from him. He’s been a great influence in my cricket arena,” he added.

Mahmudullah makes it a point to look up to Dhoni’s leadership as well. He succeeded Shakib Al Hasan as Bangladesh’s T20I captain after the allrounder was banned for two years – with one year of the sentence suspended – for failing to report corrupt bookie approaches, and even led the team to its first ever T20I win against India last year. As a matter of fact, former India allrounder Irfan Pathan had noticed shades of Dhoni in Mahmudullah’s captaincy.

“There was a hint of Mahendra Singh Dhoni in his captaincy as he also used part-time bowlers after the power play which is a strategy often used by Dhoni,” Pathan had said on Star Sports.