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There are very few people who have contributed to the sport of cricket in this island to the extent that Allan Douglas has.

He represented the island as a player for many years, coached both junior and senior national teams and has sat on various Bermuda Cricket Board committees.

Recently he established another milestone in his career by guiding our women's national cricket team to success over Canada. I caught up with Allan and in the following interview he candidly expresses his views on the sport.

Congratulations on your team's victory, what would you say were the main reasons behind your success?

One of the reasons was the efforts the girls put in from the beginning. The team was thrown together but the girls worked diligently.

Also, Peter Philpott did a lot of great coaching, having a partner like him around helps tremendously.

I mean girls were trained hard they would train during their lunch hours and still show up in the evening for training.

I was always impressed that you didn't have to push them to do extras. They were into to the point that many had their work colleagues involved - looking out for them and inquiring about how their training was going.

How did you find coaching women as opposed to coaching men?

Women are a bit different in that they are fully committed. I mean some had children but they found someone to look after them while they were training or they brought them along. Some were running households, others going to classes but they still found time to train that said a lot to me.

To be frank, I haven't experienced a lot of that with guys, a lot of them would say to me well I've got this on and I can't make training, with the women it's different.

Another thing the women are like sponges, they are willing and eager to learn.

Also when the chips are down they fight hard, even when things were going against them as soon as they saw a little light they fought back.

Now that they've crossed the first hurdle what do we need to do to ensure our ladies overcome the next one?

There's a lot that needs to be done, the Board is developing a programme for the next 18 months. We're looking at trying to get a women's league going; We're going to try to get them to participate in regular cricket, but basically I'm looking at trying to get the same things for the women that the men are getting.

Are you happy with the direction our cricket is going overall?

You know I haven't really looked at that a real lot. I've been assigned to the girls and I've focused on that.

Generally I would like to see some improvement in the league structure. I'd like to see more competitive matches and more youth coming through.

I don't think the league is as strong as we would like but yet our senior programme is moving. However, we must be mindful that there will be a gap - how we close that gap is going to be critical. But I'm confident it can be done, they have full time staff there, they've got Wendell and others so hopefully all that will be sorted out.

What's your view of the 20/20 game?

Well, you've got microwaves, you've got faster cars, you've got the Internet, that's the way the world is going. Everything is moving faster. It's more exciting so it fills a void.

Gone are the days when guys like you and I would watch five day cricket and find it riveting, so you give the people who love that type of cricket what they want.

As long as you're not taking away from the sport but adding to it, then it's all good.

Are you concerned with the declining standards of behaviour in the game today towards umpires?

I'm not shocked or disturbed by it; I'm more concerned that our umpires get the support they need from all bodies so that when they go and make a report it will be held like it used to be.

We need to ensure that the umpires get the support they need from the various bodies, once that's done you would solve a lot of the problems.

Look at Cup Match for example, they bought in these two umpires and the clubs supported them but do we do that for our local umpires?

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