Five-time IPL champions Chennai Super Kings made some pretty smart buys at the IPL 2025 mega auction in Jeddah to build their squad for the future seasons. CSK, who had retained the majority of their core players, made some bargain picks at the auction table in Jeddah.
It was a homecoming for veteran spin-bowling all-rounder Ravi Ashwin who was picked back by CSK for a price of Rs 9.75 crore. Ashwin has been an integral part of the Super Kings from 2008 to 2015 but parted ways with the franchise after that.
Ashwin also gave his reactions on returning to the Super Kings. "They say life is a circle. From 2008 till 2015, I wore the yellow jersey and played for CSK and I am always indebted to them," Ashwin said. "Whatever I learnt at CSK has hugely helped me in my international cricket journey as well till today. It's been 10 years, since I last played for CSK, 2015 was my last season with CSK. I don't know how to express it. I was picked by CSK again in this auction. Words like homecoming, price and all are there but something that is very nostalgic for me is the fact that CSK fought for me in the same way that they fought for me way back in the 2011 IPL auction."
Chennai made some extremely smart buys when they picked Rachin Ravindra (RTM), Sam Curran, Rahul Tripathi and Devon Conway at bargain prices. They got back their star batting all-rounder Rachin after winning the Right to Match bid against Punjab Kings for Rs 4 crore. Curran, who was with the Super Kings in 2020 and 2021, was a steal for Rs 2.40 crore and so was top-order batter Tripathi for Rs 3.40 crore. Conway was also picked at a decent price of Rs 6.25 crore.
CSK also added to their fast-bowling and all-round stocks. They had only Matheesha Pathirana as the lone pacer ahead of the auctions and have now bought Mukesh Choudhary, Khaleel Ahmed, Gurjanpreet Singh, Nathan Ellis, Curran, Jamie Overton, Anshul Kamboj and Kamlesh Nagarkoti. They have all-rounders like Dube, Curran, Rachin, Deepak Hooda, Vijay Shankar, Ravindra Jadeja and Kamboj among others.
CSK squad for IPL 2025:
Ruturaj Gaikwad (R), Devon Conway, Rahul Tripathi, Rachin Ravindra, Shivam Dube (R), Deepak Hooda, Ravi Ashwin, Khaleel Ahmed, Noor Ahmed, Vijay Shankar, Sam Curran, Shaik Rasheed, Anshul Kamboj, Mukesh Choudhary, Gurjanpreet Singh, Nathan Ellis, Jamie Overton, Matheesha Pathirana (R), Ravindra Jadeja (R), MS Dhoni (R), Shreyas Gopal, Andre Siddharth, Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Vans Bedi, Ramakrishna Ghosh
