Twitter reacts as Ravichandran Ashwin's desire to play for the Chennai Super Kings gets crushed

Inaugural IPL champions Rajasthan Royals have struck their first deal at the ongoing mega auction, bagging off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin. The classy off-spinner garnered a hefty amount of ₹5 crores. However, it crushed the player's hopes of joining the Chennai Super Kings, the team where he started his IPL career.

A few days ago, the Tamil Nadu-born cricketer expressed his desire to return to the MS-Dhoni led franchise. The veteran off-spinner remarked it would be nice to return to where it all started for him. In a conversation with former IPL auctioneer Richard Madley, he said, as quoted by Times Now:

"I'm actually not too sure, but to be honest, a professional player going anywhere giving his best must be the ideal way to go about it. But yeah, I am 35 now, it will be nice to come back to where I started but they already have an off-spinner with them in Moeen Ali. So I don't know how they gonna go about it, so let's wait and watch."

The former Punjab skipper had a mediocre IPL season in 2021, playing for the Delhi Capitals. The Test-match specialist managed only seven wickets in 13 matches at 47.29 as the franchise succumbed in the playoffs.

Apart from CSK and DC, he has also represented Kings XI Punjab (Punjab Kings), captaining them for two years. Overall, he has 145 wickets in 167 IPL matches at 27.80.

Here's how Twitter reacted to Ravichandran Ashwin not joining CSK for IPL 2022:

Simultaneously, with the veteran set to play for the Rajasthan Royals, it puts the spotlight on teaming up with England's Jos Buttler. It would make the fans hark back to the Mankading incident between the duo in IPL 2019, which created massive controversy.

Nevertheless, the Royals will hope to arrest the slide of their past few seasons with a seasoned wicket-taker like Ashwin in their squad.