"There is a fear that the wickets in South Africa would be fast and bouncy but I think the pitches there are no more the same and have been favouring batsmen lately. Besides, India now have some very good young batsmen who can excel at the international level," said Ranatunga.
He felt India's bowling appeared weak and is more of a worry. "The Indian bowling has dipped and even if you will look to rely on your spinners, you don't have someone like a Murali (Mutthiah Muralitharan) to take on the South African batsmen. India need to work on their bowling."
The 49-year-old was speaking on the sidelines of a Wills Realtors project (established by the 1996 World Cup winning players) to come up in Sri Lanka's new capital Sri Jayawardenpura with cricket as a theme.
Commenting on the recent sledging incident involving George Bailey in the first Ashes Test at Brisbane, Ranatunga said a captain must know how to control a player. "It's about how you handle things.
I don't know about this incident but I have seen in my own personal experience, some of the match referees have taken some awful decisions on players. I can't comment on this particular (incident).
Whether it is a first or 100th Test, when you are a leader you should know how to control a player. As a leader your job is to protect. "Sometimes when you go beyond control, you need to understand and know how to control that person.
But if something goes on like Muralitharan (he was repeatedly no-balled in Australia in 1992), lot of people asked me if I did the right thing. I always say that my theory was to protect one of the great cricketers, which I did.
It may not be the best thing for the game, overall you need to take some actions. You all know what happens in Australia, England and South Africa."
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