Sri Lanka has confidence to perform well - Moody
 

By Ranjan Anandappa

CRICKET: Sri Lankan coach Tom Moody said that his team is confident in going into the four-match limited overs series against India that's just coming up, and also equally confident in playing them in the group stage at the World Cup to be staged in the West Indies next month.

The Sri Lanka team left for India on Friday morning to meet the home team in four One-Day International matches prior to the World Cup."We played India many times in the past couple of years. We are pretty clear as to how they play the game and how dangerous they can be particularly at home, but playing India in a World Cup match in the Caribbean islands is going to be a lot different than playing them in Mumbai or any where else in India." said Moody.

"We respect them as they have a good side, but we have a lot of self-belief and confidence in ourselves, not only in India but at the World Cup. I am going out there with confidence, players are confident. We earned that confidence through hard work. We worked very, very hard through a long period of time. With that continuous hard work we gained confidence and we are going to work harder right upto the World Cup, I am sure that the players like myself will be going to India with loads of confidence so that we could have a successful World Cup campaign." he said.

Talking about the composition of the team, Moody said that there is a week or so before the team has to be finalised for the World Cup and most of the team pick themselves. There are a couple of areas we are still looking at and there are opportunities for players to put their hands up. They are those who are not going to India. Players like Chamara Kapugedera, Akalanka Ganegama, Gayan Wijekoon - all these guys are vying for places and have still got their opportunity to put their hands up with good performances, just like the players who are going on the tour.

Moody also spoke about the non-availability of the two key players - Chaminda Vaas and Muttiah Muralidharan who were rested from the Indian tour.

"We rely heavily on those two players throughout the calendar year, and we thought it was important that they spend this time in the gym, working on their fitness and getting themselves one hundred percent fit instead of giving an extra work load of another four matches. We will be calling for their expertise and class over the World Cup and depending upon them like lot of our players. But they do carry a heavy work load and responsibility and we also wanted to give the opportunity to the likes of Malinga Bandara to prove his worth." said the Australian - born Sri Lankan coach.

Moody also visited the West Indies recently to get some inside information about the Windies like climate and condition of the wickets and what the challenges Sri Lanka face during the World Cup.

"One of the main reasons for going out there was really because most of the stadiums that we are down to play are brand new ones, with seventy yard boundaries and new wicket squares which have only been laid six months ago. We may also have a slight variation on the balance of our side for the selection of the final fifteen players, so all those possibilities should be explored before the final selection.", he said.

Sri Lanka skipper Mahela Jayawardena said that this limited over series should provide our players to get into good habits and it will be a good opportunity to try a few options, which will be useful in the West Indies.

"We are not going to make too many changes, a few here and there. We just want to see how certain players fit into certain roles and all in all it should be a very exciting tournament", said the Sri Lankan captain. The four-match series starts on February 8 in Kolkata (former Calcutta). The other matches are on February 11 in Rajkot, February 14 in goa and Vishakapatam on February 17.

"We are obviously going there to win the tournament, we got the players to do that and we are looking forward to that. Vaas and Murali are two big campaigners for us, both experienced guys, but then again the other guys we are taking, we have lot of confidence in them as well for them to perform. It is good to have a look at the Indians because we are going to play them at the World Cup. I don't think both teams would like to put their ace cards out on the table, but, we got to meet each other and look into areas where we can improve." said Mahela.

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