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Back on the island after a lengthy tour of Kenya and Dubai, national coach Gus Logie talked to the James Whittaker this week about the trials and tribulations of the trip, the state of Bermuda cricket and why he's still optimistic about qualifying for the next World Cup.

What's your view on the success or otherwise of the tour?

It was always going to be difficult for us, we had problems before we left with players being unavailable and not having anywhere to train, but once we got there we did buckle down and do as much work as we could.

The experienced players were the ones we were looking to carry the team and the youngsters we were just looking for enthusiasm and to do the best they could.

Malachi Jones and Rodney Trott acquitted themselves very well.

Rodney was the find of the tour. He is a young man who has a lot of promise and he came up trumps for us.

He has a fantastic attitude off the field and he showed that on this tour. That's the kind of player and character that we are looking for. He gave 100 per cent in every training session.

You say the younger players were there for the experience, but as it turned out Rodney Trott and Malachi Jones were key members of the squad?

That's the way it turned out. With Rodney particularly, he's matured a lot on this tour and was a pivotal member of the team.

He played every game, except possibly one, and that shows you how much he's improved and developed.

That's what we're looking for from some of the senior players. We lost games at crucial points and some of them didn't perform when it mattered.

The batting was, to say the least, disappointing. Hemp did well in the four-day game and individual players had one or two good scores here and there but as a whole the consistency was not there.

What were the high and low points performance wise?

Kevin Hurdle spearheaded the bowling attack with 22 wickets and showed what he can do with the bat, playing some vital innings for us.

Hemp did what was required in the four-day game, played with patience and building an innings and that's what we want to see more of from the others.

One area I am disappointed with is that senior batsmen continue to give their wickets away without much of a fight.

"We seem to be quite happy with an attractive 20 or 30, rather than a grafted 50 or 60. If they could have posted more competitive scores it might have helped us win one or two of those close games against Kenya.

Are you worried at all about the form of the captain Irving Romaine? (pictured below)

Any player who has his experience and quality, who you are depending on to perform, it's a let down when they don't.

As captain the pressure is on him even more, so that's something he has to work on.

He has to understand there's no substitute for spending time at the crease.

He did it once, with an important innings, batting for nearly 50 overs against Kenya and one would hope that gave him confidence to move on from there.

Do you think there is enough potential in the Under-19 squad for them to form the nucleus of the senior team by the time ICC 2009 comes around.

It all depends on how quickly they develop.

The national team is only part and parcel of what happens at club level. You can't expect the guys to come and train with the national team and suddenly be able to perform miracles.

What they do at club level impacts greatly on the national team. If at club level they don't train and prepare properly and just turn up and play they come back to the national team and they have regressed.

We're trying to get the message across, but I don't know if it's getting through.

You can see the difference on tour after a few weeks of living together, training together, eating together. You can see a big difference. But then you don't see the players for a couple of months and they regress.

The letter-writers have started to get on your back a little bit, I think I read one suggesting you be replaced by Bennett King?

I would like to see what Bennett King has to say about that. I think he should try calling him and see what he says. I'd like to see if Bennett King wants to come here.

Are national coaches restricted in what they can achieve in a part-time set-up?

We have been able to achieve a hell of a lot but it's been in spite of (the obstacles)

We still expect a lot from our players but you have a situation where there is no national team in training.

You can't have a national set up when you have four guys here and five guys there.

Can you see any way round that?

The only way round that is contracting the players and at this moment in time I don't see that happening.

At the Stanford Twenty/20 we are going to meet teams who have been training for months with proper facilities. We have guys who don't know how their next bills going to be paid if they miss work. They come to training when they can - tired from work and not always ready to focus on cricket.

I don't know if you've been watching the Stanford 20-20 show but these guys are training to play cricket, they're playing seven days a week.

We do the best we can with what we have. The under-19s don't even have a place to train, but who is asking about that, who is criticizing about that?

The team will leave and people will expect them to win, The coaches will be expected to work miracles.

I don't know any other country that's involved in the high performance programme that has to go overseas to play every game.

We're expected to go and beat people in their backyard when we can't even have proper preparation in our own backyard

What's the solution to that issue, in your view?

That's not my job to find a solution for facilities. That's something for the higher powers to deal with. I'm not supposed to be worrying about finding a field to practice on.

It's an infrastructure issue. There should be sports fields available.

Given all that, do you think Bermuda can qualify again for the World Cup in 2009?

I'm quite optimistic about this group of guys and the young players we have at present.

It's not going to be easy, but at the end of the day if you want something bad enough you can overcome the obstacles and achieve it.

We are up against a lot of obstacles beyond our control.

We need people on the ground to do their part. They can't just point fingers at the national team. The national team comes from where?

When you have an issue with discipline, for example. You have one of your best players having to be sent home (Lionel Cann).

We don't have the kind of quality that we can afford to have one of our best players sent home. But that kind of thing (bad discipline) is commonplace at club level and people are used to getting away with it.

There has to be a bigger effort from the clubs - that's the academy. The clubs and the community are the ones that are producing the players.

We can't have people doing the wrong things in the community and at the clubs and expect them to be eradicated at the national level.

What's your take on the incident with Lionel?

I've made it quite clear that is unacceptable and regrettable. I've seen him mature as a player and become a leader on this tour. It is unfortunate that this happened but hopefully we can move on from there. It's not in my hands but I don't think it should be the end of his career. He's shown remorse and I'd like to think we can move on and that it won't happen again.[[In-content Ad]]

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