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It was exciting retaining the Eastern Counties title on Saturday. We had a lot of high-class players in the team and throughout the tournament.

Chris Foggo, Justin Pitcher, Arthur Pitcher - these guys really showed their class throughout the matches.

Players like Gregg Foggo and Rudell Pitcher filled in nicely. It was nice to be able to coach and lead them to a win after being away for three weeks.

I've been working with them all season to develop professionalism and implementing discipline codes. I've been pretty tough on them.

It's been pretty rigorous for them and they deserve all the rewards that they get.

Mikkail Crockwell was colt in the county match against Flatts. He's only 17, but he's stepped up big time for St. David's this season by getting wickets.

Justin Pitcher is another young player that has shown growth this year.

Then we have regular guys like OJ Pitcher, Delyonne Borden and Chris Foggo that are seasoned cricketers now.

We're seeing how good they really are as senior players.

We've had mixture of youngsters coming along and playing as a team and then we have guys like Del Hollis and myself.

During the three weeks I was away with the national team, Del stepped in and played a major role. He's been at St. David's for years.

Some of these guys, when they were nine or 10 came through with Del as the youth coach. He's always put a lot of time in for St. David's cricket.

When I'm away, he fills in and carries on that discipline that we've put in place. He enjoys it because it's a challenge. He's definitely an asset for St. David's.

Playing in Bermuda

It's hard coming back and switching gears. I get more out of coaching. The things I learn while I'm away, I try to implement into the team we have at St. David's. It's difficult for me to come back and play. The focus is more on the youngsters and trying to develop them. I get a sense of satisfaction seeing them study the game of cricket.

I like playing for St. David's but I'd rather be representing Bermuda by playing overseas with the national team, or even better, playing locally against international teams.

My dream is to play One Day Internationals on home grounds. We haven't played at home since the 20-20 in April 2006. I saw the excitement of playing in front of the home fans.

I don't want to step into the politics of the situation, but at the end of the day Government and the environmentalists need to sort this out so Bermudians can see international cricket played here.

We only have One Day status until 2009 and if we don't qualify, then we may not ever get that chance to play One Day Internationals here.

So next year could be our last chance to play One Days here.

Bermuda would have one of the better grounds of the associate nations. I've travelled around the world and see some of the grounds that do have One Day status, it's amazing that we don't have it. It's sad to see we can't play here.

20-20 league

There's a group that's going to meet with the clubs and the board about the possibility of having a 20-20 league next year. 20-20 is becoming big - they are going to have the 20-20 World Cup, in India they have the ICL League and Allen Stanford wants Bermuda to have a professional 20-20 team. It's becoming big around the world.

20-20 is becoming the way to go so we need to start a league as soon as possible.

If we have the Stanford team next year, it would be very exciting because it's a type of cricket that entertains a crowd.

We are all entertainers and 20-20 is nothing but entertainment. I'm almost like a 20-20 specialist.

It would be nice to be a part of Bermuda's first pro team.

It would also be good for the youngsters as a way to develop and work in a professional environment. n

Lionel Cann is the coach of St. David's and a national team player.[[In-content Ad]]

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