My 96 team of Chaminda Vaas, Muttiah Muralitharan will beat Rohit Sharma's India inside 3 days: Arjuna Ranatunga

Arjuna Ranatunga passed a brutal assessment on India's recent show in Tests (Reuters/AFP Photo)

Sri Lanka's World Cup-winning skipper Arjuna Ranatunga passed a brutal assessment on India's recent show in the red ball format. The team endured a shocking 3-0 clean-sweep against New Zealand at home, and the 1-3 hammering by the mighty Australia inflicted a huge blow on the team's stature.

Taking note of India's performances where the world's most reputed batters Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli failed miserably, Ranatunga said that his World Cup-winning side would have outplayed the present Indian unit in a Test match at the latter's home.

Ranatunga made the assessment during his participation at Calcutta Club The Telegraph National Debate 2025 in Kolkata on Saturday evening. The 61-year-old was part of a panel, which included ex-India players Dilip Vengsarkar, Diana Edulji, Kirti Azad, Dilip Doshi among others, and debated on 'T20 is the real test of cricket'.

Ranatunga, who was aggressive in his defence of Test cricket said: “When I was captaining in the early 90s, you look at that batting order as a player... Gavaskar, Vengsarkar, Amarnath. We couldn’t get them out twice...Azharuddin, Tendulkar, Vinod Kambli, Dravid followed. What quality players they were.

"I’ll ask you a question. Don’t get me wrong. Do we have that class in India now? I don’t think so. I’m blunt. I’ll tell you to the face. If I have this Indian side with bowlers like (Chaminda) Vaas and Murali (Muttiah Muralidaran) play against my ’96 side, that team of mine would have beaten India in India in three days."

The Ranatunga-led Sri Lankan side of 1996 featured legendary names like Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas, Aravinda de Silva, Sanath Jayasuriya and Marvan Atapattu, among others.

Meanwhile, India's poor show in the Test series saw them fail to make it to the finals of the World Test Championship (WTC) 2023-25. This is the first time India won't play the finals of WTC since the inception of the competition.