Cricket is in such an appalling state that there are people calling for the Bermuda team to be dismantled, while others look on from across the waters with great concern.

Recently, former Bermuda Under-19 manager Gerald Bean and SportsMax, the Caribbean broadcaster, put forward two interesting topics that I want to discuss with you.

There was an article in The Royal Gazette this week, in which Bean suggested that the Bermuda team should withdraw from international competition and invest the time and money into redevelopment of the domestic game.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but that is ridiculous, and virtually impossible. Furthermore, I just think we as a country have been spoilt with an abundance of good cricketers in the past, and we have to realise that everything and everyone has their time.

Bean’s comments actually make me smile, for I can recall in 2007 when the senior team lost all of our matches at the World Cup and people were crying for the youth to be given a chance.

Immediately after that several of the senior members, including myself, stepped aside to give our young cricketers a chance to flourish and come through.

However, one competition later, the same people were crying for the senior players to come back as the young players were just not ready yet, and Bermuda watched in agony as we suffered some heavy defeats.

Every time the national team goes through a rough patch we cannot just simply say, ‘Dismantle them’. When the great West Indies team of old lost all their players they, too, struggled, and continue to struggle some 15 to 20 years later, but they are slowly rebuilding. It will take time to rebuild, years and years of hard work.

The West Indies team of today are nowhere near the team they used to be, but Bermudians will still pay thousands of dollars to go to watch them play. Why is there not a cry for West Indies to withdraw from Test cricket and rebuild? West Indies sit seventh in the one-day international rankings, only ahead of New Zealand, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, but they still persevere.

We in Bermuda have been spoilt with the abundance of good cricketers. Unfortunately, people have taken it for granted.

However, the world changed, but we didn’t. Technology came into the world and gave our children another outlet, other sports developed and gave our children options, and now cricket is in a dilemma like never before. Mr Bean talks about developing players from a young age, but the reality is that some of our most talented young cricketers are involved in other sports, or their interest is elsewhere?

When the cricket season rolls around, just take a look around the fields, and the playgrounds, and see how many of our children are playing cricket in the parks, or on the side of the field. Very few, if any at all.

Sadly, that is what our cricket has come to. The interest at a young age is not like it used to be; furthermore, there is no Bob Jones (the national cricket coach in the Seventies) running around our schools drumming up the interest in the game.

We struggle as a country simply because our children do not play enough at a young age —and that is a fact. Therefore, we have what I call late bloomers: players who don’t reach their true potential until late in their twenties.

Bermuda, I will keep it real with you. What we do have in each youth age group are three or four really special, highly talented cricketers.

We have academies at various age groups, which are run fairly well, but we should also have an advanced academy for the elite players to gain extra, high-tech coaching, with an aim to fast-tracking those players into the national set-up.

As we are in our off-season, now is the time for those in the Bermuda Cricket Board to put their heads together and come up with a plan to revive cricket. Both short and long-term plans are needed, and these plans need to be filtered to all the clubs because they have to play their part in player development, too.

This week I was interviewed by SportsMax concerning cricket in Bermuda, presumably because they had read one or two of my columns. One question they asked keeps ringing in my ears: “Are the West Indies doing enough to assist Bermuda cricket?”

As I am not directly associated with the BCB I could not give a definite answer, but that question has been ringing in my ears ever since.

What does the West Indies do for Bermuda cricket? In the past, they have invited us into the Red Stripe Bowl, they have toured Bermuda, sent various teams to Bermuda, such as Barbados, Jamaica, West Indies A.

Our youth team used to play in the Sir Garfield Sobers tournament, while our under-13s used to play in a tournament in St Kitts, which was very competitive. However, these are all things of the past. What have they done recently?

If we want to seriously get our cricket back on track, the most important thing of all that we have to do is get our cricketers playing more. Bermuda should be playing in as many tournaments as possible in the West Indies, at both senior and junior level. This is the only way to close the gap on other countries.

I do not want to hear about lack of money. Go out and raise money. Football just did it this summer, with parents and children pulling together, and were able to take several teams away.

It takes work, it takes people who have cricket at heart to change and turn our cricket around.

We all have a part to play, and who knows, one could even possibly see me back in Bermuda coaching this year doing my part for player development.

However, keeping our senior national team is a must, as they are the benchmark for all of our young, aspiring cricketers. Without a senior team, who would our young cricketers aspire to be like?

Then we really wouldn’t have any national pride because our children would go back to thinking Cup Match is the pinnacle of cricket, which it is not.

nQuote of the week: “One cannot be prepared for something while secretly believing it will not happen.” — Nelson Mandela