If there was one thing that Tre Manders learned from his time in Barbados it was that Bermuda’s cricketers need to work harder if they want to succeed.

Part of the Bermuda contingent invited to the ICC Training Camp on the Caribbean island last month, Manders said that spending time with players from Canada, United States and the West Indies opened his eyes to the potential the Bermuda team has going forward.

Manders believes his generation of players, which includes Terryn Fray, Kamau Leverock and Christian Burgess, have the talent to return Bermuda to Division Two of the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League as long as they prepare in the right way.

“We didn’t feel like we were out of place [in Barbados], but they train every day. We went to the grounds everyday, and they were just there during the day in the hot sun bowling, and batting, and we asked ‘when do they stop’ and were told they don’t stop. Everyday they just keep going and going, and we need to learn from that.”

Of the squad that travelled to Malaysia and was relegated to Division Four, six were aged 23 or younger, and it is those players along with the likes of under-18 captain Alex Dore, who will be tasked with getting the team back into the higher-echelons of Associate cricket in the years to come.

Manders has no doubt that he and the rest of the group are ready for that responsibility, and welcomes the challenge of eventually becoming one of the senior players in the Bermuda team.

“I think all of us [Fray, Leverock, and Burgess] are confident for that, we know it’s coming, we know Janeiro [Tucker], Lionel [Cann], all of them [the older players] have gone. We know that our chance is coming to step up, which is why we need to train a lot, get to know the game better. The more we play, the better we’ll get.

“I think there is definitely the talent there, I just think it’s the mentality and the preparation coming up to big tournaments. We were talking to the Canada players in Barbados and they train for almost the whole year, and in Bermuda we don’t have preparation like that.

“We’re good enough not to be in Division Four, we’ve got the talent to be in Division Two, it’s just that we need to grow up really.”

The work ethic was not the only thing that Manders had his eyes opened to in Barbados, batting with players from Canada and United States was also a revelation, and he said that he felt the entire experience had made him better as a player.

“Me, Christian [Burgess], Onias [Bascome] and Delray [Rawlins] always say that when we were batting with them we saw how different it is, as [opposed] to with Bermudians. They [Canada and United States players] talk a lot, they run [singles] a lot, it’s very different.”

Manders intends to take everything that he has learned and put into practice in England where he wants to stay “for as long as I can”.

Intending to return to play for Bailey’s Bay in the Eastern Counties and Somerset in Cup Match, Manders will focus most of his attention on getting into the first team at Sarisbury Athletic Cricket Club who play in the Southern Premier Cricket League.

Tom Evans, the ICC coach in Barbados, gave Manders a couple of things to work on and with winter nets scheduled to start soon there will be plenty of opportunity for him to put the lessons he learned into practice.

“Tom helped me to get to know myself better [as a cricketer],” Manders said. “I always knew what my strengths are, but he gave me an idea of what I can do to improve my game.”

The Junior Elite Scholarship that the BCB helped Manders get last year has also helped, the $4,300 boost went towards one-on-one coaching with Phil Hudson, a Level 4 coach in the UK. As much as anything it gave Manders more confidence in his own abilities.

“My performances, they’re not as good as I want, but I feel like I’m coming along,” Manders said. “Being in England has given me a good push getting my performances up where they should be.”