Christian Bugress does not mind which Caribbean Premier League franchise he is assigned to, he just cannot wait for the “amazing experience” to start.

The Bermuda wicketkeeper should find out in the next couple of days which team he will be training with in June.

One of six ICC Americas players who have been given the chance to try and earn a playing contract with a CPL team, Burgess said that he was “very excited” to have the opportunity.

Even though he does not know where in the Caribbean he will be based, the possibility of spending a week alongside the likes of Jacques Kallis, Shahid Afridi, and Kevin Petersen has fired Burgess’s imagination.

“I don’t know where I’m playing, I’m just excited to go,” he said. “I had a look at a couple of the teams after the draft, and it doesn’t really matter which team I am on, it’s going to be an amazing experience either way.”

The Bermuda wicketkeeper earned the right to be involved with a CPL team during an ICC Americas training camp in Barbados in December, and he will return to the Island in June, the week before he joins his CPL team on June 13, to take part in an ICC High Performance Camp alongside the five other players who were selected; Steven Taylor (United States), Nitish Kumar, Nikhil Dutta, Satsimranjit Dhindsa and Farhan Malik (all Canada).

Burgess said that being selected was a validation of all the hard work he had done, and made him feel like he was “making some headway with my game”.

Tom Evans, the ICC Americas high performance consultant, who ran the camp in Barbados, said that Burgess’s leadership skills, as well as his performance on the pitch, had also played a part in his selection.

“We were very impressed with Christian in Barbados,” Evans said. “His glovework was really clean and he showed he is adaptable and can bat well in different positions which suits the T20 format. His leadership skills and work rate also impressed and I’m sure he will represent Bermuda and the region well in this opportunity.”

During his week with a franchise Burgess will compete with four West Indies Under-19 players for a playing contract in this season’s CPL, which starts on June 20. However, Burgess is not looking past the week he will spend training alongside professional cricketers.

“It is a massive opportunity, but I’m not trying to think about that too much,” Burgess said. “It’s more or less go and soak up as much knowledge as I can from these international cricketers, and the way they carry themselves, and how they go about training, and the way they do what they do.”

For Burgess just the chance to be involved has proved that the dream of playing the game professionally does not have to be an empty one for Bermuda’s cricketers. He lays much of the credit for that at the feet of the Bermuda Cricket Board.

“I’d like to thank the cricket board for making this possible,” he said. “It’s a good opportunity that they’ve put in place and shows that others from Bermuda can reach the next level, it’s a goal that can be reached, it’s not just an empty dream.”