Former South African all-rounder, Lance Klusener, said he sees himself in MS Dhoni as the former Indian skipper performed a similar role during his international career. He is widely regarded as one of the most exciting players and the best finisher of his era.
Lance Klusener is currently the head coach of the Afghanistan cricket team. In a recent interaction with Malayalam Manorama, The 49-year-old discussed MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli, saying that the former perfected the art of finishing off games.
“Dhoni perfected the art of taking the games deep and finishing it off in the company of tail-enders. When I look at him, I see myself! Like me, Dhoni is an aggressive batsman who looks to dominate the bowlers right from the word go and accelerate the scoring rate,” he said.
Klusener also spoke about Kohli in glowing terms. He opined that building an innings and playing an anchor role is a much tougher task in international cricket. Besides his failure in the World Cup, Klusener, who never played a T20I, said that not being around in the IPL and T20 era is one of the biggest regrets of his life.
“My failure at the World Cup will remain the biggest regret of my life. The IPL comes second. In fact, Mumbai Indians had invited me to be a part of their coaching staff three years ago, but I was not in a position to accept that offer,” he further stated.
Over the course of his international career, Lance Klusener played 49 Tests and 171 ODIs for the Proteas. He, however, is notoriously remembered for not being able to take South Africa over the line in the 1999 World Cup semi-final match against Australia, which ended in a tie.