Faf feels 'lucky' to play under Dhoni's captaincy

From having Virat Kohli as part of the leadership group to learning from 'captain cool' Mahendra Singh Dhoni during his stint with CSK, Faf du Plessis is all excited to lead Royal Challengers Bangalore in the upcoming IPL.

The former South African skipper, who was bought by the RCB for Rs 7 crore in the IPL mega auction earlier this year, was a key member of the Dhoni-led four-time IPL champions since 2012.

"I was lucky enough to play under MS Dhoni for an extremely long time," the 37-year-old said in an interview on the IPL website.

Ahead of their IPL opener against Kolkata Knight Riders, Dhoni on Thursday handed over the CSK reins to talismanic India all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja.

Effusive in his praise for the World Cup winning India captain, Du Plessis further said: "I got to see very closely how his brain works. You know how things operate under him which was once again very fortunate for me."

Moving over to RCB, Du Plessis, a three-time IPL winner with CSK, will have his task cutout to clinch the elusive title for his new franchise.

Kohli, Karthik and Maxwell in leadership group

But Du Plessis is unfazed by the expectations and said he would benefit from his core 'leadership group' that has the likes of Virat Kohli, Glenn Maxwell and Dinesh Karthik.

"Virat was the captain of this country for an extremely long time. I mean, a very good leader for Indian cricket and for RCB... So that experience and wisdom and knowledge that comes with that is second to none."

"And then the same thing Maxi (Glenn Maxwell). He has captained a lot of games, especially in T20 cricket. So his brain and his ideas are very valuable and the same with Dinesh Karthik."

"I'm very lucky that we've got a great strong leadership group within the team. I'm the kind of leader that relies on a lot of other people."

"So I'll be pulling them as close as possible to make sure that they can use all that information to the best of RCB. Every captain has his strengths. I think for me, it's been over my time to just look at these different leaders and see their strengths, but also finding my own way in what's going to be different today."

"It's really important that you are, who you are. And then you can use those things that you've learned from different people. And just add them to your style of captaincy," he added.

RCB will take on Punjab Kings in their IPL opener in Navi Mumbai here on Sunday.