Rassie Van der Dussen said now that Faf du Plessis has relieved himself from captaincy duties across all formats, he will have more time to share his wealth of knowledge with emerging South African batsmen like him. 

Du Plessis resigned from captaincy earlier this year, with Quinton de Kock taking over him in limited-overs cricket and an announcement over new skipper in the red-ball version still awaited. 

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The veteran right-hander is approaching the twilight of his illustrious career, a phase which Van der Dussen wants to make really good use of, as he strives to fulfil his immense potential and serve Proteas for long. 

"Captaincy is an awesome responsibility, but you carry so much on your shoulders. You get scrutinised and it always comes back to the captain and you've got to deal with that as well as the praise that you get," Van der Dussen told Sport24.

"Maybe that load off Faf's shoulders, not that he ever struggled to carry it, might open him up a bit more to influence young batters coming in where maybe in the past he just didn't have enough time to attend to those things."

"He has a wealth of wisdom that young batters can feed off and that I have fed off in the last 18 months," added the 31-year-old, who was the best of Proteas' batsmen during last year's unsuccessful World Cup campaign in the UK. 

Du Plessis, said Van der Dussen, is someone he really looked upto at the start of his career at the domestic level. 

"Faf was a big one for me when I started, but all of the senior guys made me feel really at home. Faf was definitely someone that I went to for advice," said the right-hand batsman, who has so far played 21 ODIs, 15 T20Is and kickstarted his Test career via the home series against England in December-January. 

"Faf and myself are not dissimilar players. I can relate to what he did in his game and his mental strength and everything that goes with that."

(Inputs from PTI)