By Clay Smith

After a great start to the World Twenty20 Qualifiers, Bermuda are in a spot of bother as they sit in seventh place out of eight teams with only two games remaining.

Bermuda must finish in the top five to make the play-offs and have a realistic chance of qualifying as one of the top six teams.

Scotland, Papua New Guinea, and Bermuda are tied on four points, but Scotland and Papua New Guinea have a far superior net run-rate, and both still have to play winless Denmark.

If everything goes to form, you expect Scotland and Papua New Guinea to beat Denmark, which means Bermuda will have to win their last two games just to have an outside chance of reaching the play-offs.

Things are looking bleak, but we must believe.

At the start of the tournament, there were three teams whom I highlighted that Bermuda must beat: Denmark, Nepal and Papua New Guinea.

We still have Nepal and Papua New Guinea to play.

While some may say it’s over, trust me, it is far from over — and this is the belief system that must be instilled in our players right now.

The win over Scotland was a bonus, so now we must beat the teams in our group whom we should realistically defeat.

The coaches and the players must have a heart-to-heart and re-evaluate our game plan because strategically we have been poor.

This form of the game requires not only hitting boundaries, but planning and execution.

The way our batting line-up is set up, we will always score about 140, which looking at our recent defeats is not a sufficient amount of runs for our bowers to defend.

As a team, we have to score more than 160 runs to have a realistic chance of winning matches.

Bermuda must address how to go about the powerplay, both batting and bowling. For those not familiar with the powerplay, basically the team fielding are allowed only two boundary fielders in the first six overs of the game.

The remaining fielders must be inside the inner fielding circle. This period of the game is when most batting teams look to capitalise because the fielding team are restricted.

This appears to be an area that has been heavily dominated by our opposition so far in the competition.

Teams on average are scoring 20 runs more than us during this period of play.

Take yesterday’s game against Kenya when we batted first. In the first six overs of the powerplay, we scored 42 runs, which in some eyes is not bad.

Kenya, on the other hand, in their first six overs scored 64 — and this is despite losing a wicket in the first over!

In the other games, we lost against the Netherlands and Afghanistan, the figures were very similar, so what does this mean?

We are not maximising the powerplay; hence we are reaching mediocre scores between 110 and 150, while other teams in our group consistently are hitting scores between 140 and 180.

Basically, right now there is only Dion Stovell doing the majority of the boundary scoring during the powerplay. Bermuda need another natural boundary scorer at the top of the order with him.

I said at the start of the tournament that we should open the batting with Lionel Cann or Kwame Tucker to maximise the power play. Also, Janeiro Tucker must bat earlier.

There is no way Janeiro should be batting at No 6 in a 20-over game, regardless of what the score is. The captain should be batting no lower than No 4 so that he can take an over or two to get himself in and start beating the ball around like we know he can.

Our remaining opponents, Nepal and Papua New Guinea, both beat Kenya. The African side scored 182 against Nepal and lost, and then scored 176 against Papua New Guinea and lost.

The toss in both of these games will be a crucial factor because Bermuda do not seem to be able to bat first and defend a total, even though we did manage it against Scotland.

Batting is Bermuda’s strength and should be winning or losing us games, rather than our bowlers.

At the end of the day, it’s do or die time. Bermuda must produce the goods over these final two games or our dream of another global tournament will be over.

I have no doubt that we have the talent to do it, but do we have the mental strength?

The question is, if you do something the same way and get the same result, which in this case is negative, are you going to do the same thing, or doing something different? Good luck!

•Quote of the week: “You only ever grow as a human being if you’re outside your comfort zone.”

— Percy Cerutty