Stephen Outerbridge is not certain whether he will be back as Bermuda captain next season, but the return to a two-division format gives him reason for optimism.

The Bailey’s Bay batsman was replaced as Bermuda captain by Janeiro Tucker for the World Twenty20 Qualifying Tournament in Dubai last September, when he made himself unavailable for personal reasons.

Despite the new campaign being just a few months away, Outerbridge has not yet been given an indication that he is still Bermuda captain.

“That’s a good one, I don’t know what’s happening,” Outerbridge said. “I’ve got other things on my plate, so it’s not a big thing for me right now. That’s a Board decision.

“The last meeting I held was two months ago. I have to sit down with the powers that be.”

Outerbridge was named the Bermuda captain in October 2012 after the resignation of David Hemp. He is encouraged, however, by the Bermuda Cricket Board’s decision to return a two-division format for the upcoming season.

“They made the decision to go back, which I think is a very good decision,” said Outerbridge, who attended last week’s BCB meeting.

“I guess they saw the attendance and standard of play displayed last year and they probably wanted to move to a more performance-based structure. I’m happy with the decision that they made.”

Bay were dethroned as league champions by St David’s last season and finished sixth in the league standings, high enough to ensure that they will be placed in the top division this summer.

“I think it will be eight teams in each league, we’re just waiting for them to confirm,” Outerbridge said. “They are talking about bringing two other teams in, a national A team and an under-19 team with the national team playing in the top league and the under-19s in the First Division.

“Regardless if we were to be in the top league, I’m a cricket person first and foremost and it is not just about me, it’s about development of the sport. You had the national coach there [at the meeting] and I thought it was a commonsense decision. It should have been a commonsense decision last year, but that’s water under the bridge.”

Wendell Smith, the St David’s coach, expects the restructure to result in more competitive matches, although he said that it is up to the clubs to play their part in raising the standard.

“It should mean more competitive matches, hopefully larger crowds to observe top teams playing against each other and hopefully on a home-and-away basis, so that we get a second chance to exact revenge if teams suffer an early loss,” Smith said.

“I had been to the previous meeting when there was a post-mortem last year and it became very apparent that the Board would have to go back to the two-tier system because there was a lot of vociferous comments regarding the league season last year.

“A lot of matches were one-sided and that wasn’t good for the development of the youngsters.”

Smith added: “Clubs have to push their players to ask more of them and have qualified coaching and decent wickets. Also, having relegation and promotion so that teams have something to aim for, so they don’t become complacent. We’ve flip-flopped a few times, but I think with some really exciting matches, it should be here to stay for a while.

“Coloured clothing doesn’t matter to me as a coach; what’s more important to me are performances and the standard of play. I was really impressed with the standard of umpiring last year.”

Smith accepts that St David’s will have a tough task, like Bay last season, defending their titles which include the league and Twenty20 titles.

“Like Bailey’s Bay, once you win the title, people start gunning for you,” said Smith, who will be stepping down as coach at the end of the season.

Bay won just half of their 12 league matches last season when they also lost their Eastern Counties title to St David’s.

“We go up to Bailey’s Bay for the Eastern Counties this season and that’s going to be interesting,” Smith said.

n Bermuda’s development team lost the last two matches of their tour to South Africa, going down 67 runs to Bridgehouse and by 60 runs to Wynberg.

Bridgehouse scored 182 all out in 25 overs, with Kacy Greene claiming five wickets for 24 runs and Jahdae Wade two for 19. The development team could only manage 115 for eight in reply, with Torleair Caines scoring 36 and Greene 20

The seven-match tour ended with another defeat for Bermuda yesterday, after Wynberg scored 162 for seven off their 35 overs and then restricted the young Bermudians to 102 in 28.1 overs.

Isaiah Greaves led the Bermuda bowling with two for 21.

In the batting, Tucker led the way with a knock of 29.

The development team returned home last night, having won one of their seven matches.