Veteran offspinner Ravichandran Ashwin came back to his former IPL team Chennai Super Kings as he was signed by the franchise in the IPL 2025 auction. Ravichandran Ashwin, who originally hails from the city of Chennai, started his IPL career while playing for the Super Kings. However, he was released by the franchise after IPL 2015 and played for various franchises since. Now that he is back with the Chennai Super Kings, head coach Stephen Fleming was thrilled to have him in the team.
Stephen Fleming termed Ravichandran Ashwin’s return as the “homecoming” and claimed that the offspinner has an emotional attachment with Chennai which prompted the franchise to go for him. R Ashwin was signed for INR 9.75 crore by CSK after he was not retained by his earlier team Rajasthan Royals.
CSK purchases Ravichandran Ashwin for 9.75 crores in IPL 2025 Auction.
Ravichandran Ashwin was bought by CSK for Rs 9.75 crore during the opening day of the auction, as CSK looked to add players whose skill sets are suited to conditions at the Chepauk, which is known for producing slow and low turners. Having made his debut for CSK in 2009, Ravichandran Ashwin was a part of the team’s title-winning campaign in 2010 and 2011 and has also played for Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings), Rising Pune SuperGiants, Delhi Capitals and Rajasthan Royals.
Chennai Super Kings can use Ravichandran Ashwin in “a number of ways” in the IPL 2025, said head coach Stephen Fleming after the five-time champions completed the venerable spinner’s homecoming at the mega auction here on Sunday.
Stephen Fleming Reveals CSK can use Ravichandran Ashwin in a number of ways in IPL 2025
Stephen Fleming spoke to the media after signing R Ashwin and revealed the reason behind this signing. He termed Ashwin’s signing as the homecoming for him and claimed that he has an emotional attachment to the city.
“It’s a bit of a homecoming for (Ravichandran) Ashwin, but he’s a world-class bowler,” Fleming said.
“It’s not so much the price – you look at how someone fits in, and there’s an emotional attachment for Ashwin with Chennai, so it’s a nice fit,” Fleming said.
Fleming further praised Ashwin’s skillset and mentioned about the advantages of having an experienced player like him in the team. The former New Zealand captain hinted at using Ashwin at different roles at different stages.
“He has still got a very good skillset; his numbers are fantastic. He’s obviously towards the latter part of his career, but the experience he brings, he’s handy with the bat, and we think we can use him in a number of ways,” he added.
Ravichandran Ashwin’s world-class skills
R Ashwin has a variety of skills which can be useful in the T20 format. He has a good carrom ball and he doesn’t shy away from using it. He has the ability to bowl at any stage of the game which makes him such a useful cricketer in a T20 match.
Not only with the ball, R Ashwin is a handy contributor with the bat as well. He has displayed his batting skills a no. of times for his previous team Rajasthan Royals too, having batted higher up the order for the franchise. Apart from Ashwin, CSK also bought Afghanistan spinner Noor Ahmad, who has played in the IPL for Gujarat Titans, for Rs 10 crore.
Fleming said the move was aimed at addressing specific bowling plans of the team.
“(The choice of) Noor Ahmed was looking more at the middle to attack, so if we do get turning conditions, then we’ve got an opportunity to keep taking wickets,” he said.
“We’ve got (Matheesha) Pathirana at the end which is the death aspect and we’ve just identified that the way the game’s going, your bowling has to be really specific and you have to take wickets to slow teams down.”
“If you’re just trying to contain then some of the hitting power of players these days will just take the game away from you, so we’ve tried to be smart with our options given our retained players and add some variation which maybe we lacked a little bit last year,” he said.
Fleming said CSK were surprised that not many teams showed interest in New Zealand star Rachin Ravindra, whose career graph has seen a big spike in the last two years.
Yeah we were, we thought Rachin, given his success in the Test series that often counts — the performances leading up to an IPL — but we obviously experienced the IPL with us last year,” he said.
“To pick him up at what I think is a low price and continue his development, he could be a player with that skill set.
“He does the same as Jadeja at the moment, but looking forward there could be an opportunity, so if his development continues, he’s a very silky player and we’re really happy to have him at that price,” Fleming said.
Stephen Fleming will now look forward to day 2 of the Auction for more exciting prospects for Chennai in IPL 2025.