Dear Sir,

I feel it necessary to come public with statements in reference to remarks made by national cricket team coach, David Moore, in last week's newspaper.

Let it be made quite clear that this letter is not intended to ruffle any feathers within the Board or with Moore himself.

This letter is to clarify the reasons surrounding my non-involvement with the UAE tour.

Firstly, it is true, a "gesture" was put to me, first by Arnold Manders last week Tuesday and then by Mr. Moore on the Thursday regarding making myself available for these matches. I responded the next day by turning the gesture down due to its timing.

The reason I use the word gesture is because the decision to include me in these matches was made three days before the four-day game commencing, basically at the last minute. This decision, I believe, was made in light of Mr. Manders' nephew, Jekon Edness, withdrawing from the tour citing his tiredness of playing international cricket.

Let it be known that I personally spoke with Moore three weeks' ago at a national team training session in which I expressed my interest to be involved in the national programme. To my surprise, he stated that someone within the Board had informed him that I had been suspended this year already in cricket.

Hence his decision not to include my name in a training squad of 20 players for UAE. I informed him that this was incorrect as I have played all matches for my club PHC this season. I proceeded to ask him, who had informed him of this. However, he informed me that he could not reveal his source.

He encouraged me to continue doing well in the league because this is how he would select future sides. He actually said: "For the moment I was not in his plans but he would continue to monitor players progress."

I concluded from this my services were not needed and left the Berkeley training grounds.

Saying all this, I cannot see how I "refused" to play for Bermuda which Moore had stated when I was initially told I was not in "the plan", hence committing myself to work for this upcoming weekend as PHC have a bye.

I could not get the time off for the four-day match because I had only three days' notice to give to my employer.

For the record, I am making it publicly known I wish to be involved in the national programme and hope the Board will see fit to include me in the near future. As I said, this letter is not to ruffle any feathers only to set the record straight as many cricketing people and Bermuda fans have expressed a concern to me.

JASON ANDERSON

PHC

Dear Sir,

Quite a number of my avid readers have asked me what I thought of Bermuda's nine-wicket Intercontinental Cup defeat at the hands of the United Arab Emirates.

Quite frankly I don't think the team did too badly considering. Yes their first innings extremely anaemic total of 56 was pathetic but they recovered well in their second innings to score 332 which proved to me that they can compete at this level.

Let me make clear that I do not attribute our loss to either the players or the coaching staff.

In my opinion it lies entirely in the hands of those players, fans and administrators who over the past couple of decades called for the elimination of open cricket on the Island.

Those who called for the BCB to get rid of open cricket on the grounds that it was irrelevant to Bermuda because the only important international competitions we compete in are limited overs tournaments, or that the game itself is boring and didn't attract many fans (to which I must respond – there is no considerable difference between 20 fans at an open cricket match or 25 at a limited overs game.

The fact of the matter is that open cricket is the crucible in which young players are developed, it allows them to grow and mature into good cricketers.

It allows a batsman to build an innings and a bowler plenty of overs in which to work a batsman out.

Take county cricket in England, for example, watched by the proverbial two men and a dog but it is still played – why? Because that is the form of cricket in which players are groomed.

Unless and until the Bermuda Cricket Board commits itself to at least six weeks of open cricket at the start of our cricket season we will continue to suffer humiliating losses to teams that are essentially no better than us but more importantly stunt the development of our cricketers.

RECMAN