Veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin spoke about the two captains he has played under in the national team – Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli. About Dhoni he said that the former Indian skipper always maintained that the off-spinner is exceptionally skillful. Kohli, on the other hand, always put absolute belief in him.

“MS always maintained that you are exceptionally skilful and you should keep doing what you do,” Ashwin told Harsha Bhogle on ‘Cricbuzz in Conversation’ as quoted by IANS.

“IPL and CSK is a stage that everyone wants. For me it was more about recognition. MSD did not know who Ashwin is, (Matthew) Hayden and (Muttiah) Muralitharan did not know who Ashwin is. The first thing that came to my mind was that ‘I will show these people that Ashwin is here’,” said Ashwin who got his contract with CSK, one of the most successful IPL sides, in 2008.

“I don’t know it was being foolish or arrogant but that was how I was made. Nobody was giving me a chance that Ashwin would play alongside Muralitharan or ahead of Muralitharan. I thought, I will get there ahead of him one day,” he added.

Speaking further about Dhoni, Ashwin said he got him out during a Challenger Trophy game and that is when he caught the World Cup-winning captain’s eye.

“I never had massive interactions with him. It was going to the nets and getting MSD…he was hitting Muralitharan out of the park and I thought, if I bowl better than him, I may get to play ahead of Murali.

“I got his attention when I got him during a Challenger Trophy and celebrated like a crazy kid,” he recalled.

In the same chat show, Ashwin spoke about an incident with Virat Kohli where he learned how much the current Indian captain trusts him.

During the 2017 Bengaluru Test against Australia, where they had bowled India for a paltry total of 189, Ashwin had devised a strategy to dismiss David Warner and went to Kohli to convey that.

“Virat was playing PlayStation with (Wriddhiman) Saha and I went to his room and said, ‘Virat, I think what’s happening is Nathan Lyon got wickets in the first innings and the wicket was damp so somehow there is this sense of people coming in and saying that Lyon got wickets and hence Ash should get wickets and we’ll roll them over.”

“But I want to be in my own cocoon, where I can take this game forward the way I want. I think I want to go over the wicket to David Warner even if it sounds defensive. We need to put this game on pause mode, literally pause this game without Australia wresting the initiative. And I think both Warner and Renshaw have practised a lot of balls for off-spinners coming from round the stumps. So I want to change this game.’

“He listened to my idea for a minute, started playing the game and said, ‘Do what you want, I have complete belief in you.’ And the next day I started bowling over the stumps.”

“How David Warner got out in the first innings in Bangalore, where he got bowled – I moved over the stumps and started hitting the rough and he got bowled,” Ashwin explained.