Aged 37, one doesn’t see ace Indian spinner Ravichandran Ashwin bidding adieu to cricket anytime soon. However, whenever that happens, Ashwin has already laid the groundwork with respect to building a parallel career which will unequivocally burst forth just like the one on a cricket field. Handsomely equipped for a position in broadcasting, Ashwin is also believed to provide a shot in the arm to his YouTube channel post retiring from all formats of the sport.
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A last-minute addition to India’s ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 squad in spite of playing a mere four ODIs across the last six years, there is no hiding to the fact that Ashwin encompasses a soft corner for narrating anecdotes. It is this particular talent of the right-arm bowler which allowed him to compare legendary captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni to a film director in a video which released as recent as this morning.
R Ashwin Compares MS Dhoni To A Film Director
One of the many Indian cricketers who benefited immensely from playing under Dhoni, it is to be noted that more than half of Ashwin’s international matches across formats have come under his leadership.
While Ashwin had made both his white-ball debuts under former Indian batter Suresh Raina in 2010, he had first represented India under Dhoni in an ODI against Australia in Visakhapatnam later that year. Interestingly, around a couple of months before his international debut, Ashwin had made his IPL debut for Chennai Super Kings under someone who led them to a fifth title earlier this year.
Having represented the franchise 120 times between 2009-2015 before playing IPL 2016 for Rising Pune Supergiant under the same captain, Ashwin has had quite an experience of sharing the dressing room with Dhoni. Not just an astute reader of the game but also of individuals, Ashwin linked Dhoni aptly to a director in a recent episode of Kutti Stories With Ash in the presence of legendary broadcaster Harsha Bhogle.
“You know what I think of [MS] Dhoni? Dhoni is not a captain; he is a director. He is actually a very very good movie director…like he is a director for the game. What does a movie character do? He picks the character and he picks the exact cast for that character. Right? So, I think Dhoni, in his head, he picks a character. He knows where that character fits. Who is the person for that character? And gives that person the exact situation to go and play his role to a tee.”
2011: It was not just the team’s World Cup. It was the World Cup of every Indian common man.
In E5 of #KuttiStorieswithAsh, @bhogleharsha and I look at the Legend of Dhoni’s men as team India hit the pinnacle in the 2011 WC.
Gambhir, Sehwag, Sachin, Virat, Yuvi, Zak, Suresh,… pic.twitter.com/ZhmCumgRKN
— Ashwin 🇮🇳 (@ashwinravi99) October 4, 2023
Dhoni, one of whose business agreements is in the form of coming up with a film production company in association with Banijay Asia, had a biopic directed by Neeraj Pandey in ‘M. S. Dhoni: The Untold Story‘ (2016). While the critically and commercially acclaimed movie wasn’t made under his banner, a documentary titled ‘Roar Of The Lion‘ (2018) had featured him debuting both as a producer and an actor.
Having said that, Dhoni’s debut as a movie producer had happened just over nine weeks ago. Titled ‘Let’s Get Married‘ (2023), this Tamil movie which had released in July this year was the first one to hit the cinema halls under the banner of Dhoni Entertainment.
Ashwin Provides Suresh Raina’s Reference To Justify Director Comment For Dhoni
Ashwin drawing parallels between a cricketing legend doubling up as a movie director was justified by Raina’s reference. In the same YouTube video uploaded on his channel named Ashwin, the off-spinner explained in detail how Raina was once a beneficiary of Dhoni’s “perfect casting”.
Having warmed the bench during the first five league matches of ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, Raina was given his first opportunity in the last match of the group stage. In spite of an initial failure, Raina proved his mettle in two crucial knockout matches (quarterfinal against Australia and semi-final against Pakistan).
Raina, who didn’t get to bat in the final against Sri Lanka, had justified playing both the aforementioned matches ahead of all-rounder Yusuf Pathan by delivering in crunch pressure situations.
While there’s nothing novel in Dhoni putting lesser known or least expected cricketers in the limelight, a latest example of the same is how he utilized the unrecognized potential of Indian Test vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane during Indian Premier League 2023.
At a time when the majority was expecting out-of-favour Rahane to remain unsold in the auction before the 16th season of the cash-rich league, Dhoni not only bought him but also provided him clarity to register a career-best season in terms of strike rate.
