Bermuda cricket will soon have a new national cricket coach. But BCBC president El James envisions another major development to enhance the standard and status of the sport in the region ...a comprehensive cricket academy.

James noted this week that the facilities were all but in place, with Cedarbridge Academy to be used in conjunction with the yet to be completed National Sports Centre.

"In our development. In our bringing in this coach, we're looking at setting up coaching seminars and seminars for the community clubs,'' said James during an interview with The Royal Gazette .

"We're looking at taking an elite group of players and having various island retreats in order to develop an elite group of individuals.

"And it is with this in mind that we can look down the road at instituting a cricket academy. Because, when you look at this region, it is perhaps one of the few regions that has no cricket academy for the development of their youngsters. West Indies do not have it and they are the `big brother' of the region.

"So I believe that if we do have something here in Bermuda -- and we have the location, that's for sure -- we can not only provide incentive for our young people, stressing academic excellence while creating a group of young cricketing athletes that are going to take on the world, but present an outlet that all of the region would use, including the West Indies.

"It could become the focal point of the region.'' The proposed academy would function five days a week, 40 weeks of the year, with a focus on both academics and physical development. Participants would spend mornings pursuing academic endeavours, before being put through their paces by the national coach and his staff in the afternoon.

A rigid code of discipline would be instituted, with student/athletes expected to recognise their privileged position and abide by a set of guidelines and responsibilities designed to create an optimal learning and high performance training environment. Failure to adhere to such requirements could result in disciplinary action or permanent dismissal.

"There's more discipline in cricket than most sports,'' said James, who estimated the academy could hold around 50 youngsters. "You have to be disciplined first of all to stay out on the field for seven hours in the hottest time of the year.

"There's a saying `Show me a great cricketer and I'll show you a great gentleman'. That's what the sport has always been equated with and has always produced.

"It teaches one a lot of life's lessons.'' Yet the president's plans were not limited to cricket alone, as he highlighted how the same could be implemented in any number of sports on the Island to positive effect.

"Sports can be used to reduce so many things that are happening in this community,'' he added. "It can help reduce the drug usage, crime, illiteracy, delinquency, truancy. Because you're giving them something to strive for.

"There is so much sport can offer. It can really give our young men something new to focus on and, particularly within the cricketing field, we believe that the number of youth that we have we can give them something more to focus on beyond just the two months out of the year that our current programme does. We can't do a whole lot with them in two months.

"We have Bermudians right now that are overseas, between the ages of nine and 16 that are in sports academies for tennis and golf, and they are doing very well. So why can't we do our own. We have some talented young people, it's just a matter of giving them a chance.'' Regarding the feasibility of such an programme, James again pointed to the fact that most of the facilities were already in place and that it would be more a matter of rearranging teaching schedules to meet the needs of the participants.

Also, with the likely influx of youngsters from other countries, tuition could be charged as a further means of funding operations.

He highlighted Australia and South Africa as countries that have benefited a great deal from having academies, with the pair rated among the best cricketing nations in the world at present.

"These places are moving ahead, because they've put that structure together and are putting people in academies and churning out little robots, but they're not just cricketing robots, they're also good citizens.

"Academies teach them good speaking skills, how to sit at a table and eat, all about life and manufacture them into all around citizens.

"I would like to see Bermuda take the leading role and all the attention and focus for cricket would have to be on this Island. And if that were the case and we get the cream of the crop of cricket coming to this place then our youngsters will have no other choice than to become better as well. It will serve us well, and at very little expense.''