Dear Editor,

First of all, I want to say a happy belated 93rd birthday to Mr Tubby Richardson (former St George’s captain).

For the past two years, Somerset Cup Match players have picked themselves, while St George’s have picked a team for the future (whatever that means). You don’t rebuild Cup Match teams, you pick the best you have now. If St George’s pick the same “future” team again this year, they will lose again. Most of the players are not performing well and mental toughness will be depleted and defeated.

Clay Smith has said in his weekly sports column more than once that the last trial match is the important one. If the club have scheduled five trials (one of which did not happen because a wicket was not prepared, tisk tisk) and there are three that are not important, why have five trials when players’ stats for the season are available. The public know who the best performers are, why do the clubs play politics with the players? Add this to the suggestion he made that no matter how you perform in trials, the selectors or the club politics will always come into play. It has to be very discouraging to have good performance stats for the season that the public can see and be left out for some personal, private and undisclosed reason.

My quote: Cup Match is for the best players to showcase their cricketing talents to all of Bermuda while representing their clubs and to show pride in doing so.

By the way, most of our present Cup Match players are our 2008 Under-19 World Cup players. Where are our present under-19 squad? They should be in the Caribbean playing in their tournaments. Now.

Gerald L Bean

Paget

Thanks for a great night

Dear Sir,

As executive director/founder and co-founder respectively, we acknowledge publicly the valuable contributions made by the management committee responsible for the Appreciation Banquet for Master Al Wharton held on October 24: namely, Carlton Saunders, Eric Martin, Deborah Gibbons and Andrew Hall.

Collectively, they admirably managed the public relations, administration and co-ordination of the event.

We will surely record their participation in the establishment of the Bermuda Martial Arts Hall of Fame that was launched at the banquet and assure them that their valuable contributions will be documented in the history of the Bermuda Martial Arts Hall of Fame going forward.

Also, we take this opportunity to thank Master Bob Smith and Paget Wharton for their assistance.

Last, but not least, special thanks to Wayne Symonds for his tireless effort in producing the video presentation.

To all the practitioners, friends and supporters who helped to make the event memorable, especially the inductees and our special head table guests, we extend our sincerest thanks.

Al Wharton (Founder/Executive Director) and Cal Shabazz (2014 host/co-founder)