Mumbai: Former Australian cricketer and current Chennai Super Kings (CSK) batting coach Michael Hussey has revealed that he was so impressed with the legendary Allan Border's batting that he switched to becoming a left-hander from being a natural right-hander during his formative days.
Hussey, who played 79 Tests and scored more than 6,200 runs at an average of 51.52, has had a long association with CSK, first as a player and then as batting coach. He reversed the fortunes of the Chennai franchise in 2010, which eventually went on to win the title that year. In January 2018, he was appointed CSK's batting coach.
Revealing an interesting story on how he switched from being a right-handed batter to becoming a left-hander, the 46-year-old Hussey said, "My cricketing hero was Allan Border, who is a left-handed batsman from Australia, and I can tell you a funny little story. When I was about eight or nine years of age until then I was a right handed batsman. But, I loved Allan Border so much that I changed to be a left handed batsman like Allan Border.
"I loved the way he played his cricket, he was tough, he never gave his wicket away he worked very hard, played with a lot of passion, so he was certainly my hero growing up."
Thanks to the switch, Hussey went on to eventually play 79 Tests, 185 ODIs and 38 T20Is for Australia, scoring over 12,000 runs in international cricket. He also played 64 T20s for Chennai Super Kings scoring 2,213 runs.
Hussey also gave an insight into the coaching philosophy of CSK.
"...we are all equal, and we try and treat everyone equal. Whether you are (Ravindra) Jadeja, or M S Dhoni or Deepak (Chahar), or you are the 25th player in the squad, you know we try and treat everyone the same, we try and treat everyone with respect, and the goal is to try and improve every player. Improve them as a cricketer, but also try and help them improve as a people and as characters as well. And, I think if we can do that and everyone can try and help each other then we are doing a good job."
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