Indian veteran spinner Ravichandran Ashwin was sold to Chennai Super Kings for INR 9.75 crore, making his return to the team nearly after nine years. CSK were in bidding wars with Rajasthan Royals (RR), Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) and Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in order to buy Ashwin and they successfully executed their plan. 

Ashwin was with CSK from 2009 to 2015.  During his time away from CSK, Ashwin played for Kings XI Punjab (now Punjab Kings), Rising Pune Supergiants, Delhi Capitals and Rajasthan Royals. CSK also bought Afghanistan’s young spinner Noor Ahmad to further consolidate their lineup. CSK head coach Stephen Fleming termed Ashwin signing as “Homecoming”.

"It's a bit of a homecoming for Ashwin, but he's a world-class bowler. It's not so much the price - you look at how someone fits in, and there's an emotional attachment for Ashwin with Chennai, so it's a nice fit. He has still got a very good skillset; his numbers are fantastic. He's obviously towards the latter part of his career, but the experience that he brings, he's handy with the bat, and we think we can use him in a number of ways," Fleming said.

"The Noor Ahmad pick was looking more at the middle [overs] to attack. So if we do get turning conditions, then we've got an opportunity to keep taking wickets. We've got [Matheesha] Pathirana at the end, which is the death aspect."

"We've just identified that the way the game is going, your bowling has to be really specific, and you have to take wickets to slow teams down. And if you're just trying to contain, then some of the hitting power of players these days will just take the game away from you. So we've tried to be smart with our options given our retained players and add some variation, which maybe we lacked a little bit last year."

CSK also easily bought back New Zealand players Devon Conway and young star Rachin Ravindra.