Ravichandran Ashwin made his debut for Chennai super Kings in 2009 in the Indian Premier League. The off sinner back then wasn’t a household name and was looking to make his mark. Ravichandran Ashwin recently shared how he needed to impress his skipper MS Dhoni.

After sitting on the bench for the entire first season the IPL he finally played his first match. The off-spinner from Tamil played his first IPL match against Mumbai Indians at Cape town. However, Ashwin didn’t get a chance to bowl in his debut match as MS Dhoni wasn’t aware of the spinner.

MS Dhoni was not aware of me: Ravichandran Ashwin

From that point onwards, he didn’t look back and became a trump card for Dhoni. Ashwin’s wicket-taking ability impressed everyone including Dhoni.

“MS Dhoni did not know who Ashwin was. I had to catch the eye of MS Dhoni. So, if I had caught the eyes of MS Dhoni, I had the best chance”, Ravichandran Ashwin told Harsha Bhogle on Cricbuzz.

Ashwin overall is the seventh all-time leading wicket-taker in the IPL. He played a total of 7 seasons with CSKK in which the franchise won 2 IPL titles and 1 champions league T20. The tweaker in 2010 picked the most wickets and was awarded the player of the tournament in the champions league T20.

Ashwin after his career at CSK played for the Kings XI Punjab and was also the captain of the side in the IPL. After two disappointing seasons with the KXIP, he was traded to Delhi capitals were he was slated to play in IPL 2020. Ashwin commented that he never likes giving excuses an admitted he had a below-par performance in the 2018 and 2019 IPL seasons.

“There are other factors, the owners did feel I haven’t delivered which is true because I could not take the team through to the playoffs in both the seasons. You can give excuses why we could not do that, but I am someone who takes it under my chin and admits that ‘yes I couldn’t deliver.’ The trade was more initiated rather my doing”, Ashwin concluded.