---

In today's fast pace world even major cricket tours appear to be moving at the speed of light.

Long gone are the days when cricketers would spend close to three months on tour with the luxury of playing enough first class games prior to the beginning of a Test series to acclimatize to conditions.

Last year South Africa decided to begin their tour of the West Indies without the benefit of a first class match before the First Test at Bourda.

They quickly found themselves in trouble to what many considered a depleted West Indies team and were only saved from what would have been an embarrassing defeat by a defiant century from Jacques Kallis.

In August of this year Bermuda began their Inter-Continental Cup campaign against Canada, arriving in Toronto the day before the match, needless to say they were bundled out for a paltry 125.

Fortunately by day two they had caught themselves and battled back to post a big score going on to record a fabulous victory.

But one wonders whether they would have found themselves in such a precarious position had they arrived in Toronto earlier and were afforded the opportunity of some match practice.

Last week, the world’s best batsman Brian Lara blamed his dreadful performance in the one-day matches of the Super Series on a lack of match practice.

“I was short of competitive work,” Lara told the Sydney Morning Herald. “I hadn’t played cricket since June against Pakistan….”

Lara incidentally is third on the all-time Test run scorers list with 10,859 in 118 games at an average of 53.75. Only former Australian captains Allan Border (11,174 in 156 Tests) and Steve Waugh (10,927 in 168) exceed Lara's runs tally.

This raises questions regarding master coach Gus Logie’s decision to shun practice matches ahead of Bermuda’s semi-final encounter with Kenya.

Logie explained that he believes Bermuda can make better use of the time by holding intra-squad training sessions and reasons that playing practice matches could result in last minute injuries.

Although his explanation sounds plausible it nevertheless appears to fly in the face of conventional wisdom.

Yet Logie has thus far managed to guide Bermuda’s cricket team to unprecedented success, it may well be a mistake to question his judgment now.

We will find out soon enough!

Dennis Williams

I am not sure if it will hurt our chances but I think it would have helped if we had played at least one match.

I realize what Logie said about it but in my opinion there is nothing like playing an actual match in terms of preparation for a big game. It is difficult to simulate a real game.

Gerald Simons Sr

Warm-up matches are very good if you can get them, but if the players have been practicing and are mentally prepared they should be all right.

I believe they are mentally prepared because they are confident. The key is to think positive not negative.

Ritchie Foggo

No, I don’t think so, there is a lot of camaraderie among the players, things seem to be working out and like Logie said in the training sessions everyone gets a chance to work out and get use to the conditions. So, I don't think it will hurt our chances.

Kenneth ‘Pop’ Simmons

I wouldn’t say hurt but I think it may be a bit of a set back.

I have always believed in training on the wicket, with proper field settings, game like conditions.

Also playing against unknown players is always helpful because then you are really tested, facing players you are familiar with is not the same.[[In-content Ad]]

---