India should have played a practice game in South Africa, feels former India skipper Ajit Wadekar

Mumbai: Former India skipper Ajit Wadekar is hopeful that India will translate their brilliant performance at home into something spectacular in South Africa even though not playing a practice match is a matter of concern.

India will tour South Africa for a three-Test, six-ODI and three-Twenty20 series, starting January 5.

"You need to get adjusted to those wickets because of the bounce. With no practice games, it is going to be a little bit hard on our players. Ours is a balanced team though," the 76- year-old veteran player told reporters today.

"At the moment, the (Indian) team is doing really well, they are a very balanced team and they also have (enough) experience to play on any kind of tracks. Their past track record suggests that they seem to be in good form and they should be able to do well," he said.

But he had a word of caution as South Africa is a tough place for any visiting team.

"South Africa is always a tough country to beat. They are tough guys and the wickets are a lot faster. India will have to go there well-prepared," Wadekar said on sidelines of an award function organised by Dr Dayal Foundation here.

The former left-handed batsman received the Dr Rameshwar Dayal Lifetime Achievement Award.

Wadekar also praised skipper Kohli terming him as "tremendously attacking cricketer."

"Virat is made of a different mould entirely. He is a tremendously attacking cricketer. The present-day game requires that type of a cricketer because without that you won?t be able to attract crowds. Not only is he attacking, but he is a cricketer who can play for the team. He does not like losing," he added.

Asked does aggression help Kohli, Wadekar said, "I suppose so. Aggression is essential; you can't play with inferiority complex all the time."

India Vice-Captain Ajinkya Rahane has been struggling and could not do well in the Sri Lanka series, but Wadekar feels that a thing like this can happen to any "great cricketer".

"There comes a time like this in every cricketer's career (when they go through such a phase). I have seen Sunil Gavaskar going through a bad patch, it can happen to any great cricketer.

"Rahane is one of the top cricketers India has produced and he will definitely come over the bad patch. But the sooner he gets over the bad form, the better it will be for Indian cricket. He should keep on playing because if he keeps playing, he does not loose confidence, I am sure he is going to get back in the runs," Wadekar added.

During the early times, scores of 200-250 were enough for the teams to win ODIs, but now batsmen are themselves hitting 200s in ODIs.

Quizzed about it, Wadekar said, "The wickets are getting better these days and the bowling attacks are becoming stereotypes, so it has become much easier for the batsmen to score runs. But (today?s) batsmen are also more skilled than we were".