Ravichandran Ashwin may have enjoyed his best days in white-ball cricket under Mahendra Singh Dhoni, but those who remember it, can recall that the off-spinner wasn't former India skipper's first-choice tweaker at the 2011 World Cup. 

In fact, Ashwin had to wait till deep into India's campaign to get his first game, as Dhoni kept preferring wrist-spinner Piyush Chawla alongside veteran Harbhajan Singh. 

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Ashwin, who had played only seven ODIs before his World Cup selection, reminisced the feeling of being benched despite calls for his inclusion in the media and amid fans, before he finally got the nod in his home city, Chennai, for India's last Group B encounter against the West Indies. 

As it turned out, the then 23-year-old enhanced his reputation very early into his international career, delivering fine spells in India's win in that match as well as the quarterfinal victory over Australia in Ahmedabad. 

"I remember that World Cup very, very clearly. Every morning I woke up, I wasn’t playing in the XI. I hadn’t played a lot of one-day cricket also leading into the World Cup. I just played a few games but I had performed quite very well, and every day I woke up, the paper would read Ashwin should get a game, Ashwin should be playing so and so forth," he told Sportskeeda. 

Taking confidence from performing at the biggest of stages for his country, Ashwin soon became India's premier spinner across formats. But it wasn't all smooth sailing earlier on, especially during that World Cup, where being initially considered a back-up to Harbhajan, he had to really bide his time before finally getting his opportunity. 

"We had Bhajju pa (Harbhajan Singh) who was playing in the XI as well. So, I was finding it very difficult to balance. For me, it was like, I would like to be playing, I want to be playing," he said.

"Every cricketer wants to play, but here I am, being told that I must play. So, delivery of the fact saying, Ashwin will play and he will help the team win, sort of told me, if I have to play I need to win the World Cup for the country because everybody had said that I should play and if I play, India will win the World Cup," Ashwin concluded.