Devon Smith has played 31 Tests and 32 One-Day Internationals for the West Indies and has an international double-hundred to his name. Brandon Bess is a raw fast bowler who recently made his Test debut against South Africa.

Neither would look out of place touring with the full West Indies team. As it is, they are just two of a powerful 14-man West Indies 'A' squad that Bermuda will face at Malton Cricket Club in Toronto in a week's time.

Skipper Sharmarh Brooks led his country in the Under-19 World Cup in Sri Lanka four years ago, and is considered a bright prospect among West Indies cricket, while a 'high performance' squad that has been together for three months is the 'A' team in everything but name.

All are well known to Bermuda head coach David Moore from his time with the West Indies, and if he was looking for a team to give his players a good workout he probably couldn't have picked a better one. But that's exactly what Moore wants. He wants it to be difficult, he wants it to be hard, and he accepts that it could be quite painful.

"I'm a big fan of Smith's, and that's a pretty good side they've got," said Moore. "But you want to have players that are really going to test you. I'll be more than interested to see how we measure up to a team like that."

This though is exactly what the tour was meant to be about, testing players against better sides in preparation for the most important tournament for Bermuda since the World Cup.

Losing in the qualifiers in Dubai next April won't just mean another failure internationally, it will also probably mean relegation to the ICC Division Three.

And that task is likely to mean having to beat USA and Denmark, the two sides expected to come out of the Division Three tournament in Hong Kong in January. USA began the year in Division Four, but thrashed Italy this month to move up a rung on the Associate ladder.

Potentially, with Namibia, Uganda, and UAE also playing, Bermuda will be in a six-team tournament in which they have been comprehensively beaten by every side involved in the past 12 months, bar Denmark.

It makes the trip to Canada, and the preparations over the next six months that much more important.

"To play against an Associate country, and then the 'A' team of a full member nation, to us, is a great opportunity, and I want to see how our players stand up," said Moore.

"Canada, USA are the teams we have to beat to continuously progress in the world standings. Any game that we can play against Canada is great, and the fact that we have got higher level competition with West Indies 'A' is fantastic as well.

"April is our key tournament, we're in Division Two, we didn't get a point from any of the four-day games that we played in the Intercontinental Shield, our performance in Division Two hasn't been great.

"We have to go into a Division Two play-off and try and beat the teams that we haven't beaten at all. So it's a big challenge."