By Martin Gough

Tom Moody is on a tour of his favourite venues as coach of the Sri Lanka side in England.

Moody moved from Worcestershire to take the Sri Lanka job last June

This week he returns to Worcester, where he spent eight years as a player and five as director of cricket, leading the Black Pears to two C&G Trophy finals.

And on 11 May he will be watching his charges from the Lord's pavilion, where seven years ago he sprayed champagne as one of Australia's World Cup winners.

But 40-year-old Moody does not indulge in misty-eyed nostalgia.

His focus is on helping develop a Sri Lanka side to compete with the best over the next decade.

It has been a rollercoaster year for the towering Aussie, who left New Road in June after widespread speculation he was destined for an international job.

He was interviewed by India and Sri Lanka last summer, eventually packing his bags for Colombo when India opted instead for Greg Chappell.

"One of the reasons I took the opportunity was to be challenged at the top level and also to be challenged in the subcontinent," Moody told BBC Sport.

"It is a completely different environment to where I've been brought up and played cricket.

"I've learned a lot and will continue to learn as I go along."

One of the attractions of the opportunity was working at a time of change, new faces and old, experienced players moving on Tom Moody

International cricket offers different challenges to the English domestic game.

Sri Lanka will have played up to 56 days of international cricket in 2006 by the end of the current tour in July.

But the average county side will see action on 89 days over a similar length of time each summer.

With Sri Lanka, says Moody: "You're working with elite athletes and have to introduce new ideas to constantly challenge them so they're not standing still as individuals or as a team.

"In county cricket, because of the treadmill that you step on in the middle of April and get off in the middle of September, other issues tend to be a higher priority.

"Instead of constantly trying to develop the individual it's a matter of just getting through the next week."

It has hardly been plain sailing in his new job, though, as the Sri Lanka side is in flux, gradually shedding members of the World Cup-winning side of 1996 and finding new faces.

Moody (centre) won the World Cup at Lord's in 1999

Sri Lanka arrived in England without big-hitting batsman Sanath Jayasuriya, who has quit Test cricket to concentrate on the one-day game.

And captain Marvan Atapattu, who hit a big century at Lord's on his side's last visit in 2002, has failed to recover from a back injury.

But the country's domestic structure does not make talent-spotting easy, with 20 club sides contesting the Premier League Championship.

"One of the attractions of the opportunity was working at a time of change, new faces and old, experienced players moving on," says Moody.

"Sri Lanka's cricketing structure is quite unique. It's not at times the ideal environment to identify talent but there is no question there is talent there.

TOM MOODY FACTFILE Thomas Masson Moody Born: 2 October, 1965, Adelaide, South Australia Major teams: Australia, Warwickshire, Western Australia, Worcestershire Right-hand bat; right-arm medium bowler Tests: 8 456 runs at 32.57, best 106, 2x100, 3x50 2 wkts at 73.50, best inns 1/17 ODIs: 76 1,211 runs at 23.28, best 89, 10x50 52 wkts at 38.73, best inns 3/25

"We're trying to identify a group of players and to invest as much time as possible with those players to bring them up to speed quickly."

"We're looking towards the next 10 years now, putting systems in place, methods of preparation and match play so things will hopefully be better in the future."

Moody claims he had no coaching ambitions when he retired from playing, and was working in a property construction business when Worcestershire offered him a job.

But he was viewed as a possible England coach in waiting.

Australia's coach John Buchanan, meanwhile, is contracted until after the end of next year's World Cup, coincidentally when Moody's deal is up for renewal.

But the former all-rounder plays a straight bat, saying: "If people want to speculate on my future that's their choice but I've got some exciting challenges right in front of me.

"Who knows what's around the corner? I don't have control over that but I do have control about the team I'm currently working with.

"Having the opportunity to work with Sri Lanka has been a terrific move for me personally and from a career point of view."