Arjuna Ranatunga Believes His 1996 Team with Vaas and Muralitharan Could Defeat Current Indian Team in India in 3 Days

India's unprecedented unbeaten streak at home in Test cricket was unceremoniously broken by New Zealand, a year ago, which came as a surprise to many. Adding to the discourse, Arjuna Ranatunga, the revered former captain of Sri Lanka, has recently stated that his victorious 1996 squad would have defeated Rohit Sharma's current team in a Test match, had it been played in India. Ranatunga's claim reflects his confidence in the capabilities of his side and triggers speculation about how the different eras of the game would fare against each other.

“With bowlers like (Chaminda) Vaas and Murali (Muttiah Muralidaran), that team of mine would have beaten India in India in three days,” he is quoted as saying by the Telegraph. Apart from Ranatunga himself, the Sri Lankan side of 1996 that stunned the world by winning the World Cup consisted legendary names like Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas, Aravinda de Silva, Sanath Jayasuriya and Marvan Atapattu, among others.

India's defeat that shook the world

The Kiwis have been among the worst tourists to India historically, never winning more than one Test in a tour and having last won a Test match in the country all the way back in November 1988. And yet, they ended up blanking Rohit's India 3-0 in October and November last year in a result that sent shockwaves around the world. India were favourites to make it to their third consecutive World Test Championship final at the start of the series. At the end of it though, they were among the outliers and their subsequent defeat to Australia in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy Down Under led to them missing out on the WTC Final for the first time ever.

The result was even more shocking as India had forced a victory in the most spectacular fashion in the final Test of the previous series against Bangaldesh despite two and a half days of the match being washed out. India smashed 285/9 in less than 35 overs, breaking all kinds of scoring records to set up a statement win that had made it look like they are stronger than ever at home.

That was India's 18th consecutive Test series win at home. The previous record was 10 held by Australia in twice, first between November 1994 to November 2000 and later from July 2004 to November 2008.

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