Mark Harper's future in Bermuda cricket still remains unclear - less than four weeks before the national coach's contract expires at the end of the month.

During his three-year tenure he has attempted to steer local cricket into a new direction, but the former right-arm medium pacer concedes he would have liked to have seen more achieved in his term at the helm of the national programme.

“I think we have made some progress but it's not been easy . . . it's very challenging to coach here in Bermuda,” he said yesterday.

“Only a handful of schools play cricket in Bermuda and only a handful of them have responded to my requests to come in and work with the kids in the schools. Since I've been here I've probably been to 15 schools and some of them quite frequently. But I would have liked to have seen more things achieved in that time.”

BCB president Reggie Pearman said yesterday: “We haven't made any decisions yet as to Mark's contract because at the moment we just have too much on our plate.

“Harper has tried hard in a few areas, but he also hasn't been successful in a lot of other areas. But we (Board) are going to make a decision very shortly and as soon as we do we will inform the public.”

Harper, who previously played in the Lancashire, Durham and Scottish Leagues in the UK, for his native Guyana and represented the West Indies at the youth level, succeeded Roland Butcher as national coach in 2001.

Over the past three years he has accompanied the senior national team to the 2001 ICC Trophy tournament in Canada, the 2002 Americas Championship in Argentina and led the side into the 2004 Americas Championships held early last month on local soil.

During his tenure Bermuda's Under-15 national team have won back to back Americas Championship titles while last month saw the senior team qualify for next year's ICC Trophy Tournament in Ireland where 12 countries will compete for five spots in the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.

“Last year we (Bermuda Cricket Board) had a winter programme within the schools but obviously I would have liked to have seen a lot more of the schools playing the game - although over the years we have seen a lot more kids playing,” added Harper.

“This year we included the Easter Camp and also the Under-15 Youth Development Programme which began last October.”

Still, Harper feels the Island's senior national team should be more involved in international cricket.

“It would be nice,” he said. “In three years I've been here we've only been involved in a handful of tournaments and so it would be nice to play international cricket more frequently.

“I think in a nutshell what needs to be done is the clubs have to have better programmes in place and all of our national teams must become more actively involved in competitive cricket. But I am really satisfied we have qualified for Ireland (ICC Trophy) and I think it was a very good achievement.

“So when you look at things I don't think the situation is as bad as people make it out to be.”

Taking into account the limited resources available, what has been achieved in the past three years has not been “all that bad”, according to Harper.

“Obviously I would have liked to have achieved things further down the road but you can work with what you have and at this stage we are in a good position to re-establish ourselves as one of the top teams in the region,” he said.

“I think, given the tools that I've been given to work with, what has been accomplished hasn't been bad and I don't think it's a small achievement that we have qualified for Ireland. It is a very good achievement that we are back in an elite group of 12 teams vying for a place in the World Cup (2007). But what I think the Board must understand now is that the team still needs a lot of work in order to have a real quality team for Ireland next year.”

Harper is currently preparing the senior team for their second ICC Intercontinental Cup match against Canada in Toronto next week in a contest the local team will have to win convincingly if they are to have any chance of advancing to the finals of the first class competition in the United Arab Emirates in the fall.

Americas Group ICC Intercontinental Cup leaders USA presently sit on 47 points, second placed Canada on 30.5 points while Bermuda have 16.5.

According to the Board's last financial report, Harper received $69,056.00 in 2002 for his services, an increase of 15 percent ($60,255.00) from 2001.