IPL 2018: Ravichandran Ashwin hopes to stay as original as possible

Kings XI Punjab will be led by Ravichandran Ashwin in the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League. The off-spinner has been handed the responsibility of leading the Punjab based franchise who have never won the cash-rich league and have reached the final of the tournament just once.

Ashwin was bought by Punjab for a whopping 7.6 crores by Preity Zinta at the IPL auction. The Tamil Nadu player played for Chennai Super Kings in the first eight seasons of the IPL. However, he was then forced to shift his base Pune after CSK was suspended for two years.

Ashwin has played under MS Dhoni for the majority of his career and also played under the current Indian captain Virat Kohli in the limited overs format for a while.

Ashwin is confident of leading a side in the IPL but is also aware of the fact that it is a huge responsibility on his shoulders. Ashwin has never led a side in the IPL before.

The off-spinner says that he wishes to draw some leadership qualities from the likes of MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli. He also stated that he would like to keep it as original as possible.

He told Sportstar, “Ya I mean it’s very important to take all the best qualities from each one of them and they have their own strengths and to take those strengths and try and imbibe into my captaincy is going to be very critical, but for me to try and stay original is very very important and not really look to be someone else and go out of my comfort zone in as much as I’ll take those from them as stay original as possible”

“I mean leading a franchise in the IPL will be a massive pressure because it’s a big tournament and well all know about it and leading a side is going to come with a lot of responsibility, but pressure is something I really like to take upon myself and I really look forward to the challenge and I’m sure I can do really well in this job.”

Here’s the news feed:

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