January 30, 2013 at 5:54 p.m.
It's time for youth to lead
The fiery seamer is one of a clutch of exciting young players, who have been in fine form in domestic cricket, and who coach Gus Logie will look to build his team around.
The squad went through a fielding and net session at the Toronto Cricket Ground yesterday and were back in training today ahead of Saturday's series opener at King City.
Logie has challenged the likes of O'Brien, Oronde Bascome and Chris Foggo to show they can be a force at international level.
"O'Brien is the spearhead of the attack no doubt about it. He's been training well. He's been quite enthusiastic and he's lost a bit of weight.
"It will be interesting to see how he does in competitive situations. He took 11 wickets in his last couple of games so his confidence is sky high. This is obviously a bigger challenge but we're pretty confident he can do well."
Foggo and Bascome are expected to open the innings for Bermuda and Logie admits it has been a big plus to have two of the island's best top order bats available.
"Chris has been his usual chirpy self, running around, doing whatever is asked of him. Oronde has been very consistent in training and really interested in playing for the national team, which is a big plus.
"The top of the order has always been a challenge for us and we'll be looking for them to carry on the form they have shown at local level."
Logie is also looking to the graduates of Bermuda's Under-19 programme to make the jump to the next level.
With the addition of Dennico Hollis there are now five players from the Youth World Cup squad in the senior set-up, including vice captain Rodney Trott.
"There's a lot of cricket ahead. Our future tours programme is pretty packed. We are hoping these youngsters will give their all and we will see improvement and maturity. We want to see a mature approach from everyone."
Logie insisted that despite the well-documented absence of senior players like Lionel Cann and Janeiro Tucker he had high expectations of the current squad.
"These are the guys that have been putting in the work and its only fair that they are getting an opportunity.
"We have a few experienced players and quite a few of the under-19s have played in Canada before, so we'll be familiar with the conditions.
"Canada's base is much stronger than ours. They have had a few problems themselves but they still have a lot more players to choose from. They still have experienced guys in the squad.
"But we are here looking to win. Any time we enter a competition we are looking to win.
"We're looking to bat out our 50 overs - that's the thing we always speak about. And we're looking for some good individual performances - for guys like Romaine and Celestine to step up and score some fifties and hundreds."
Bermuda v Canada
Three ODIs - Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday
Four-Day-Intercontinental Cup clash - July 4-7 at King City, Toronto.
Bermuda Squad
Irving Romaine (Captain), Rodney Trott (V. Captain), Stephen Outerbridge, Jekon Edness, Stefan Kelly (Joins the tour on July 1, 2008), Chris Foggo, Dwayne Leverock, Ryan Steede, James Celestine, McLaren Smith, Tamauri Tucker, Dennico Hollis, George O'Brien, Oronde Bascome, Kyle Hodsoll.[[In-content Ad]]
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