Haven’t seen anyone else like him: Ashwin hails Dhoni’s keeping to spinners
Ravichandran Ashwin has rated MS Dhoni’s wicketkeeping as the finest he has experienced, saying he hasn’t seen “anyone else” operate like the former India captain behind the stumps to spinners.
Having shared a long association in the Indian team and at Chennai Super Kings, Ashwin recalled how Dhoni’s glovework and clarity of thought stood out beyond his celebrated leadership.
“His glovework has always amazed me. People talk a lot about his captaincy, and rightly so, the titles speak for themselves,” Ashwin said on JioStar’s ‘The Ravichandran Ashwin Experience’.
“But for me, two things stand out — one, how good a middle-order batter he was, someone who could take the game deep and finish it.
“And the second is his keeping against spinners. I haven’t seen anyone else like him.” Ashwin also highlighted Dhoni’s hands-off approach that empowered bowlers.
“He never set the field for me. I would set my own field, and he would just say, ‘Don’t double-guess. Don’t pre-empt. If you get hit, it’s fine. If someone takes a risk, let it be. Just bowl to your field.’ He trusted that.”
The veteran off-spinner fondly remembered dismissing Chris Gayle for a three-ball duck in the 2011 IPL final, crediting Dhoni for a sharp take behind the stumps.
“You can talk about the set-up and the dismissal, but how well MS took that catch. It wasn’t easy.”
“Only regret”: With 187 wickets across 221 matches in a long IPL career (2009-25) spanning five franchises, Ashwin admitted he couldn’t quite make Punjab Kings his own despite leading them in 2018-19, but described his time at Rajasthan Royals as the most fulfilling.
“When Punjab picked me in 2018, I knew I was moving on — I spent two years there and honestly gave it everything.
“But I have a slight feeling that I couldn’t make that team my own. At an auction, you get the chance to build your team… the team couldn’t quite be built around me. I may not have achieved much as a Captain, but the learnings were immense.”
On his Rajasthan stint, he added: “I spent three years there, and that stint helped me make a comeback to the Indian team. The way RR utilised me was first-class, and I enjoyed my cricket there like nowhere else.
“My only small regret is that I couldn’t win a title with RR — That was one small regret.”
Not ashamed: Ashwin also revisited the much-debated non-striker run-out of Jos Buttler during his Punjab captaincy, maintaining he did nothing wrong.
“If the ICC felt this was an honesty problem, they wouldn’t keep it in the rules. If you need two runs off one ball and you start running early, whose fault is it?
“People say I did it to win. Of course, I did it to win. What is there to be ashamed of? “After I ran him out, I told the team... ‘don’t worry about the reaction, I will handle the media, we just have to win.’ And we won. So, there is no issue of character in this.”
