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JOHANNESBURG, Sept 25 (AFP) - Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly predicted on Tuesday that the upcoming tour of South Africa could be much closer than the last time his team played here four years ago, when they were heavily defeated.

The Indian team jetted into Johannesburg on Monday, 10 days before the start of a two-month tour which will include a three-match Test series and a triangular one-day series with the host country and Kenya.

Ganguly said despite the ruling-out of top players like frontline batsman Venkatsai Laxman, left-arm seamers Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra and reserve batsman Hemang Badani, he believed his team was well prepared.

"It's a mixture of youngsters and experienced players. Some of these guys are young but they are pretty good. It's going to be good cricket," he said in an interview with SABC public radio.

Ganguly said he believed India's chances would also be improved by their early arrival in South Africa.

"It's good to get used to the conditions. It takes any country who is touring to get used to it (conditions), like if Australia goes to India, or South Africa goes to India. Each and every player needs about two weeks to get used to conditions," he said.

He said the team would not be haunted by the spectcre of two past Test series which India had both lost.

"That's all in the past, let's not talk about it," Ganguly said in reference to the the team's past struggles on the fast and bouncy South African tracks.

Under Mohammed Azharuddin in 1992-93 the team drew three matches and lost one, while Sachin Tendulkar couldn't prevent his men from losing two tests and drawing one in 1996-97. 

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