Rajasthan Royals (RR) roped in veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin on the first day of the IPL 2022 mega auction.
Ashwin, who entered into the auction with a base price of INR 2 crore, was bagged by the Royals for INR 5 crore.
The signing meant that Ashwin will now share the dressing room with Jos Buttler at RR. Notably, the off-spinner had run out Buttler by affecting ‘Mankad’ during the IPL 2019 while playing for Punjab.
The incident had triggered a massive debate in the cricket fraternity as dismissing a batter using the method is still considered against the spirit of the game.
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While several ‘Mankading’ jokes started doing rounds on social media, Ashwin was excited to be a part of the Royals family and looking forward to playing alongside Buttler.
"Hello everyone, earlier in the day I got picked by Rajasthan Royals. I am extremely delighted they picked me. They tried hard to get me in the last auction in 2018, but it's come through finally. I have got a great rapport with all of them in that dugout, share a wonderful rapport with Sanju [Samson] as well,” the off-spinner said in a video posted by RR on Twitter.
"So, looking forward to giving my complete best for the franchise and hopefully do some special things over the course of the next three years. Looking forward to bowling alongside Yuzi. It's going to be a lot of fun. And, most importantly looking forward to sharing dressing room with Jos, how good is that going to be?" he further added.
Apart from Ashwin, the Royals fetched Yuzvendra Chahal, Shimron Hetmyer, KC Cariappa, Trent Boult, Devdutt Padikkal, Riyan Parag and Prasidh Krishna on Day 1 of the mega auction.
