IF we want to continue to push the positive, perhaps the best that can be said about Bermuda’s World Cup squad as they head down the final stretch into this month’s cricket extravaganza is that nobody could accuse them of peaking too soon. Eternal optimists might like to think that with another couple of defeats under their belts this week — against Canada, their fourth straight loss to a side who they dispatched quite comfortably last summer, and Test nation Bangladesh — Bermuda are somehow saving their best for when it matters most.

The realists, meanwhile, will take a much different tack.

The most disconcerting part of this entire campaign is the fact that, for all the investment, the travel and high performance preparation, almost two years on Bermuda are no better a side than they were when they qualified at the ICC Trophy in the early summer of 2005.

The players would argue otherwise, and as individuals they’ve no doubt improved and learnt an awful lot, but if we look at results, there’s no indication of any substantial team improvement.

As coach Gus Logie has frequently lamented, the same mistakes are being made over and over again. And it’s difficult to see how they won’t be punished in the extreme when in their next five matches, two warm-ups and three World Cup group games, they come up against the best players the game has to offer.

Nobody, of course, expects Bermuda to win, certainly not after their recent record in ODIs. Our best hope is for a respectable performance which will justify inclusion in a tournament in which some — such as former West Indies stars Michael Holding and Courtney Walsh — believe we don’t belong.

At this stage of the game, Logie’s last word of advice might be that the players simply go out and enjoy themselves, enjoy the occasion and play the type of carefree cricket which got them to this level in the first place.

It’s certainly worked well for Lionel Cann, whose big hitting down the order has repeatedly spared the blushes of a side who might otherwise have regularly been dismissed for less than a 100.

Cann might frustrate his coach and team-mates with his penchant of going for one blast too many when apparently set for a big score. But it’s difficult to criticise someone who’s continually providing the innings’ highest individual total while those around him poke and prod their way to half as many runs in twice as many balls.

Not everyone, of course, has the ability to play fast like Lionel, and most of those who attempted to emulate his no-fear approach would quickly perish. But aside from the team’s ineffective seam attack, it’s the inability to score freely — a pre-requisite for success in the modern one-day game — that has cost Bermuda most.

While clearly a class act on his day, English county player David Hemp hasn’t been the revelation we’d all hoped for, while as might be expected prolific scorers in the domestic game such as Clay Smith, Janeiro Tucker and Irving Romaine have all struggled to play with the same freedom on the international stage.

All four of the above, along with the likes of Dean Minors — the most consistent of Bermuda’s bats over the past year — are in their 30s and about to cap their careers with a one and most likely only World Cup appearance.

What a fairytale it would be if over the next few weeks they could loosen the shackles and play the type of cricket which we know they’re capable of. We’re not going to win the Cup, it’s highly unlikely we’ll win any of the three group games, although hopefully the players themselves won’t engage in such defeatist talk.

But the opportunity’s there to make a statement that could forever endear Bermuda to the rest of the cricketing world.

All we can ask that is that they give it their best shot — preferably one that clears the boundary ropes!

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MUCH has been written over the past few weeks about the plight of young cricketer Oronde Bascome, whose scholarship at the University of Wales in Cardiff was abruptly cut short by a Bermuda Cricket Board dissatisfied with his attitude and perceived lack of effort during the first term.

If we were to believe everything written in letters to this newspaper by his parents, former Regiment Commanding Officer Lt. Col. Eddie Lamb and others, we’d be left with the impression this teenager had become the victim of a huge injustice. Yet it’s fair to assume there’s another side to this story.

The BCB are reluctant, for obvious reasons, to divulge any more detailed information than has already been released, but it hardly enhances their own reputation or their chances of securing future scholarships for talented cricketers by taking the extreme action that they did. So their decision would appear to have been one which was taken reluctantly and only as a final resort.

ADRIAN ROBSON