"9.75 Crores for Nothing?"- Stephen Fleming reveals future plans with Ravichandran Ashwin at CSK

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. 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.

Fleming termed 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.

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Stephen Fleming breaks silence on CSK's signing of Ravichandran Ashwin

Stephen Fleming spoke to the media after signing Ravichandran 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

Ravichandran 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, 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.

Ravichandran Ashwin speaks on his homecoming

While Fleming was pleased to have Ashwin back in the squad, the offspinner too was happy to come back to the city he loves the most. He credited his cricketing journey to the learning at CSK during his first tenure with the franchise.

Yellove Bol. 💛#UngalAnbuden Ashwin 🦁#SuperAuction @ashwinravi99 pic.twitter.com/drAzxRBt5U

— Chennai Super Kings (@ChennaiIPL) November 24, 2024

After his first tenure with CSK, Ravichandran Ashwin played for Delhi Daredevils (now Capitals), Kings XI Punjab, and Rajasthan Royals. In between, he also led Kings XI Punjab in IPL 2018 and 2019.