Watching the Cricket World Cup from a coach’s eye has me critically analysing each team’s strengths and weaknesses. Good teams do the basics really well.

Fitness plays an essential part in a team’s success. The sides that are extremely fit and agile in the World Cup have been able to save twenty runs before they even bat.

The ability to chase balls down, dive to cut balls off, or take exceptional catches shows great athleticism.

Turning twos into threes is also a bonus when batting and something that Bermuda’s players can learn from.

Another important aspect of the game that I have closely looked at is how the captains respond to pressure.

Some captains handle pressure really well, while others tend to appear flustered.

It is important to remain calm so that you can think clearly and prevent the opposing team from feeling that they have the edge.

Probably the most significant part of the game for me is the tactical aspect. The commentators, through advancements in technology, are privy to having information on each player’s strengths and weaknesses. This is critical information to a team’s planning and preparation for any match.

They are able to identify the exact area to bowl to a batsman to restrict his scoring and to claim his wicket. It doesn’t mean that this plan will work every game, so teams must have a Plan B as back-up.

Bowlers come under the most pressure as the ODI game is tailor-made for batsmen. How to contain batsmen from freely scoring in this version of the game is difficult because of the extremities put on bowlers. Only having four fielders outside the inner circle after the powerplay makes bowling challenging.

However, this is where good captains come into their own because the field doesn’t stay the same from one batsman to the next.

One batsman may like the ball short so you may be more likely to bowl a fuller length, whereas the other batsman, at the other end, may like the ball pitched up so you may bowl short.

It basically comes down to knowing your opposition and trying to execute a plan.

This is something that should be done locally at every Thursday session prior to a match. Teams should take time out to go over a game plan which they are capable of executing.

It’s a bonus if the bowlers are able to have the control needed to perform a skill and put the ball where they like.

I heard one commentator talking about Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga’s ability to bowl yorkers, particularly at the end of an innings.

They say he nails a shoe down where the batsman would be standing and runs in and tries to hit it as often as possible. This is a skill that he would practise over and over again.

But do we as players have the mental fortitude to be disciplined enough to bowl for hours and hours doing the same skill until we master it.

Another aspect of the game closely looked at is the ability to rotate strike, particularly against spin bowlers.

I recall watching Australia score a run off of every delivery during an over. I found it fascinating as the batsmen were able to dissect the field by placing the ball at will.

Rotating strike against spin bowling is essential and is an area where Bermuda must embrace and improve.

This is definitely one of Bermuda’s weakest components of the game. The amount of dot balls we have in an ODI game tends to be astronomical, but it is an area of the game that we’re working diligently to improve.

If we as a country can analyse these finer points of the game and improve each aspect by just five per cent, we will improve tremendously.

There is a lot of hard work to be done locally and we must all commit to making a change for the better.