'MS Dhoni believed in you' - Suresh Raina lauds the wicket-taking ability of Ravichandran Ashwin

Suresh Raina and Ravichandran Ashwin did a live interaction on Friday evening. And, the duo recalled some cherishing memories and moments while they were playing together for Chennai Super Kings in IPL. Meanwhile, at Raina said that MS Dhoni used to have faith on the wicket-taking abilities of the Indian spinner.

The 33-year-old spinner was part of CSK till 2015 and he played an important role in CSK‘s consecutive title wins in 2010 and 2011. Afterwards, the franchise got banned and he was picked by Rising Pune Supergiant where he played for a couple of seasons before KXIP bought him in 2018 IPL auction. However, he had a great stint while playing for Chennai-based franchise and helped them in winning many crucial games on the back of spin bowling. He took 90 wickets for Chennai Super Kings (CSK).

Suresh Raina engages with Ravichandran Ashwin amid lockdown

During the live session, Suresh Raina said to Ashwin that’s his powerplay bowling average is quite good that always used to be below six. As per him, the off-spinner used to get crucial breakthroughs for the team due to which MS Dhoni believed in him.  The left-handed batsman also added that he told all the batsmen in the team to play Ashwin carefully as his carrom balls were simply unplayable and were very difficult to pick for any batter across the world.

“If you see your powerplay bowling average, it has always been below six, you have always provided us with breakthroughs that’s why MS believed in you. When you played for Pune and Punjab, I told my team to be careful against you as you had good carrom balls and they always used to trouble the batsmen,” Raina told Ashwin during the Instagram Live session.

Now, Ravichandran Ashwin was all set to play for Delhi Capitals in IPL 2020. But, BCCI had to postpone the T20 tournament for an indefinite period due to Coronavirus outbreak. This was going to be the first season of Ashwin for Delhi-based franchise as he was traded by Kings XI Punjab before the auction in 2019.