We were eager to play with India: Moody

Colombo: Tom Moody, the 'local man' of Sri Lanka, who has been in the emarald isle for the past one year, took some time off to chat with CNN-IBN's Nishant Arora.

Nishant Arora: Tom, have you understood the Sri Lanka weather?

Tom Moody: Not really. But when it rains here, it rains very hard. I think half the problem lies in the fact that we've had very heavy downpours and the grounds here are finding it difficult to cope with the volume of water.

Nishant Arora: How tough is it to motivate the boys?

Tom Moody: It is difficult. We've been quite lucky in the sense that this beinbg home for us and a lot of our players have gone home and have been with the family and had meals. So we've been relaxed with regards to letting the players go and do their own thing. I think it's important to switch off mentally, and when we need to get on to the ground, we need to switch on very quickly.

Nishant Arora: But when you are in a team meeting, and you have to tell them specific things to do and they say, 'Oh coach, don't tell us, we know it will rain in the morning.'

Tom Moody: I'll put it this way. We are not having too many team meetings, we've done our preparations, we are very confident in our game plans and our strategy, and we know what needs to be done. If anything, we are just getting together from a social point of view and trying to enjoy each other's company and do something a bit different.

Nishant Arora: It's the World Cup year and every team has that long term goal in mind. For that, these kinds of tournaments are short term goals, to step towards that long term goal. Are you disappointed, with some plans definitely going to waste?

Tom Moody: Yes, the first disappointment obviously was that we were looking forward to the tri-series, to have the South Africans would have been great with the Indians, and playing two very competitive sides in a good competition. But with the bomb blast in Colombo, that wasn't to be. And now the weather is intervening obviously in the opportunity for both the sides to get some good practice. The Indians are a good side, and we were looking forward to expose some young players in some tough situations. As you say, the various challenges that we face, going towards the World Cup are important and unfortunately the weather is interrupting in all those processes.

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