In what will be the last season before Bermuda heads off for yet another ICC Trophy in March 1997, some of Bermuda's senior players are calling for a change to the league structure for the 1996 season.

The issue of whether to return to limited overs and the Super Eight next season is bound to surface during the coming months. It is something BCBC president Ed Bailey is known to be in favour of, but his plan to return to the Super Eight this season was defeated by the clubs.

Bailey has support from some board members, including former Bermuda captain Arnold Manders, who is responsible for youth development, having helped set up the youth league this season.

"I think for the betterment of cricket we need to go back to limited overs,'' said Western Stars captain Manders, who actually favours a combination of both an open and limited overs format, similar to the one used in 1992.

"Obviously we need both, but we really need to be concentrating on 50 overs,'' said Manders. "The only competition that means anything to us is the ICC and it's 50 overs.

"We play open all the while and just before we go we play a couple of 50 over matches and obviously that's not good enough.'' The Bermuda players have had to adjust to the limited overs format for the Jamaica tour matches, having played little of it during the season. The crowds have declined this season, which most observers attribute to open cricket and the fact that all the teams play in the same division.

"That (Super Eight) keeps each team motivated for the entire year, you can't afford to drop your socks,'' said Manders.

"Teams that are competitive have the Camel Cup to look forward to and those not doing so well still have to play because they don't want to be relegated.

Then, with those in the First Division there is the incentive to come up into the Premier Division.'' Bailey's Bay captain Ricky Hill agreed. "Maybe we should consider limited overs so that we can adapt to the 50 overs match and be more prepared for when we go into the ICC.

"One of the most important things is we have to play for the people. They make the match, pay the gate receipts so you have to give them what they want.'' Even with a change, Hill has no doubts Bailey's Bay would still be one of the top teams on the Island. "I think if you do go back to limited overs you'll see a really strong Bay team because we have players who can maintain and bowl lines and players who can score runs,'' said Hill, who led Bay to victory in an exciting Champion of Champions final.

Good friends Wendell Smith and Allan Douglas have differing opinions about what is good for Bermuda cricket. Smith is in favour of both the Super Eight and limited overs while Douglas firmly believes that the open format is better for the development of players.

"I think players themselves appreciate playing more intense cricket when the demands and pressures are there,'' said Smith, who moulded St. George's into one of the more successful limited overs teams in the Island when he took over in the mid-1980s.

"In the Champion of Champions final the pressure was on everybody ...the bowlers to bowl tidy and the batsmen. Look at Bay's (batting) final over which Allan Brangman was asked to bowl. Obviously Noel Gibbons and Clarkie Trott were looking to score as much as possible but Allan only gave up two singles.

"That's the type of cricket we need to have, where our bowlers are forced to bowl as accurately as possible in a situation, whereas in open cricket it might not have mattered.'' Added Smith: "The whole game is a gradual buildup where you may get a nailbiting finish and every run becomes important. To me it's how we should be playing our league cricket.'' Smith has no doubts that having a steady diet of limited overs cricket will better prepare the national team players at the ICC.

"In ICC we have been so close so many times,'' Smith said. "In 1979 and '82 we were second and in '86 and '94 we were fourth. We've been so close it makes you wonder whether it would have helped us to have been playing limited overs over a long period of time.'' If the Super Eight is re-introduced next season then former champions Southampton Rangers, Devonshire Rec. and Somerset would find themselves in the bottom division based on league standings this season.

"Certain clubs that are not in the Super Eight may be dictating policy,'' said Smith. "From an outside perspective it tends to look that way.

"What the board is doing by having one league is tantamount to what the BFA would be doing by having one league. Imagine if you have the PHCs playing the Pagets, that's what we're doing in cricket.

"People are saying is it helping the lesser clubs by not playing against the so-called elite clubs, and it may sound elitist, but at the end of the day you have to say what is best for our cricket.'' That, Douglas argued, is his main interest. "I can say, and the record speaks for itself, that Cleveland speak for cricket,'' said the veteran wicket-keeper, coach and now BCBC selector.

"They don't vote for club, they vote for cricket and that's what makes us a different club in this country. I personally don't think it (limited overs) is going to make the guys better players.

"It's a fact that you have to bowl defensively, so there goes the attack and excitement. There's a fact as well that number five and six batsmen, if the top order gets a good start, are not going to be able to develop an innings.

They are going to have to do a lot of improvising of shots and those are the things that concern me most of all.'' Added Douglas: "The year we had our worst performance at the ICC we had limited overs cricket in our league. Look at why we are losing at the ICC, is it because we don't have limited overs cricket or is it because we've have gotten worthless and allowed teams to score 300 runs against us? Three hundred runs we should be able to defend in any type of cricket.'' Arnold Manders