Tucker: This is just the start for Bermuda

Janeiro Tucker reflected on a Twenty20 job well done for Bermuda and his own MVP award and vowed: ‘There’s more to come’.

The all-rounder was a pivotal figure for his country as they advanced from the ICC Americas Division 1 tournament in Florida along with USA to the World Cup qualifier in Dubai in October.

The UAE-based event will see the island compete for six available spots in Bangladesh in 2014.

Tucker, with a total of 304 runs, 13 wickets and seven catches, picked up the individual award after some stellar performances in the double round-robin event. Pace bowler Malachi Jones was also named best bowler, with 13 wickets and an impressive economy rate.

For Tucker, the key to his displays in the US was to keep things simple.

He told the Bermuda Sun: “I’ve just been playing in my comfort zone. If it’s there to be hit, I hit it and if it’s there to block, I block it.

“It’s Twenty20 cricket, you are going to look to score off every ball. You have to be creative and play certain shots to keep the score ticking over.

“I can play any form of the game, it’s just a case of adapting. As a team, the job is done. Now it’s a case of getting back to 50-over cricket.”

Bermuda play three 50-over games, the first yesterday, against the USA as they prepare for the ICC World Cricket League (WCL) Division 3 Tournament on home soil at the end of April.

That now takes priority — but the carrot of more success in Dubai and a World Cup appearance is an appetising one for Tucker.

He said: “That’s our goal. We’ve never been there but we’ve qualified and we go to Dubai and move forward. There’s a still a lot of work to be done in certain areas of the team. We lost some senior players and have some younger ones in there now. But it’s coming along.”

Lloyd Fray, president of the Bermuda Cricket Board, believes the team has a “realistic opportunity” to qualify for the Twenty20 World Cup.

He said: “To qualify is a major achievement in itself but to do it in a manner that garnered not only six Man of the Match awards and our bowlers and batsmen dominating the
averages speaks volumes for how well this team played.”