"Virat Kohli has all the qualities of a great leader," says former Zimbabwe captain Tatenda Taibu

Q: Who was the toughest opponent and the toughest bowler you ever faced?

Tatenda Taibu: Muttiah Muralidharan was the toughest bowler I’ve ever faced. You see, with Muttiah- he was different from a lot of other bowlers. Most of the bowlers during that time had only two kinds of balls- the stock ball and the variation ball. Now, Muttiah Muralidharan had three- one was the traditional off-spinner, one that went straight which looped and bounced a bit more than the normal deliveries and then he had the doosra. So, he was difficult because of that and to pick between the straight one and the doosra was difficult. So, he was the difficult one to face during the first half of my career.

Q: Who is your favourite captain, the one you think reads the game very well and has control over the game?

Tatenda Taibu: I think I never actually played in the same time, I never played in the same game with who I felt was my favourite captain and that would be Ricky Ponting. But’ I’m now taking these from when we played together during the IPL. Now, Ricky Ponting wouldn’t (talking about practice and not the game) wait for the coach to start to get things moving, he always used to start things moving and then he would easily pick up the ones that would easily get things moving and wait up on the coach. So, for me, that was a strong quality. The body language and the confidence that he carried on a cricket field is what that is making me choose him. Obviously, the record speaks for itself, if you look at the record of the Australian Cricket team. But, I’m talking more on a personal level.

Among others, I never played with MS Dhoni- the closest I played against Dhoni was just when he was getting into the national team. He was actually trying to make his mark in International Cricket and you know I can’t judge him. Look at Virat Kohli- what I love about Virat Kohli is he performs- I mean he is a seasoned performer and not only that, I watched him in a video and he was saying “we lost because we did not score enough runs”. Those are sort of the qualities I look for in a leader. He let the blame come to himself first and then his team. If I get a chance to probably watch him close, he would be the one I would love to.

Q: Being a wicketkeeper yourself, who is your favourite Wicketkeeper batsman?

Tatenda Taibu: My favourite wicket-keeper batsman was Adam Gilchrist. With my answers a lot of them are not only by seeing from afar but it’s people that I come really close to or talk to. Purely from a wicketkeeper-batsman point of view, it has to be Adam Gilchrist. I never really went close to Sangakkara for me to speak of him. I was close to Andy Flower; his batting was way ahead of his keeping and his keeping was not natural. But if I was to pick between Andy Flower and Adam Gilchrist, it has to be Adam Gilchrist.