The Bermuda cricket team’s attempt to qualify for World Twenty20 is over. What looked so promising at the start of the competition in Dubai turned into a nightmare as we simply didn’t have what it takes to compete at the higher level.

Bermuda’s performance can be compared to that of a 100 metres specialist running a 200 metres race: he comes out of the blocks fast, but fades down the stretch.

How did it all go so horribly wrong and where do we go from here?

This Bermuda team had three significant flaws that haunted us game after game:

1, Batsmen’s inability to rotate strike causing an abundance of dot balls

2, Our use of the powerplay when batting

3, Bowling at the death (the final overs)

Sadly, Bermuda cricketers for years and years at the senior level have struggled against quality spin bowling. Our inability to work the ball into the gaps and being able to rotate strike continues to haunt us tournament after tournament. This is an area of our cricket that needs to be addressed, not only at national level, but also at club level. As a country when it comes to batting spin, we either block it or hit it, but I would like to think that we are better than that. This facet of the game should be addressed at our national academy within our lower age groups so that future teams, and players, do not develop the same weaknesses.

Bermuda’s batting in the powerplay was atrocious and it appeared to get worse as the tournament went on. In the last game against Uganda, we managed only a measly 27 runs in the six-over powerplay, which equates to less than a run a ball. Shocking to say the least!

A lot of it, though, has to do with poor batting combinations. Certain players within our national team should not bat together simply because they are too similar and are not boundary hitters. The powerplay is put in place for batting teams to attack from Ball 1, thus making the game exciting from beginning to end.

For some reason, we neglected to maximise this option, hence the reason we were always trying to play catch-up in the middle overs of the game, which in return created more pressure on our main batsmen.

In the majority of the games, our bowling at the death was poor and cost us a considerable amount of runs, game after game. To bowl at that stage of the game takes a special skill and mindset. You have to have confidence in yourself and the ability to bowl accurately. The problem I saw was that we did not really know who to bowl at that period of the game. Ideally, a bowler would want to bowl a low full toss, yorker length, or slower ball, but striking our lengths consistently seemed to be a problem.

After such a good start against Scotland and Denmark, the next game against the Netherlands was crucial. However, our first mistake was removing Tre Manders from the team after he had just won man of the match for scoring 45 runs the previous game.

It was said that he had a niggling shoulder injury, but, with the team riding on such a high at that time — unless he could not bat at all — he should have been playing. After that mistake it was all downhill, as one loss led to another and our confidence slowly began to get sucked out of us.

Now where do we go from here? This team we put out were not very old in age with Lionel Cann, David Hemp and Janeiro Tucker being the three senior players. With no serious cricket for another year, the only one out of those three I can see hanging around and playing on is Janeiro.

You still have Steven Outerbridge to come back into the fold, along with Rodney Trott and O?J Pitcher. Then there are youngsters, such as Onias Bascome, Delray Rawlins, Damali Bell, Lateef Trott and Joshua Gilbert.

So the future looks bright for Bermuda, but what is needed is a coach who can improve each player individually and get the best out of them as a team. The question is who?

What coach out there has what it takes to coach Bermuda and take us to another level. That’s the million-dollar question?