The Bermuda Cricket Board is leaving no stone unturned in their quest to make it to the 2024 T20 World Cup.

A fortnight ago, The Royal Gazette revealed that a fitness programme had been introduced by new head coach Niraj Odedra but it’s not only the physical side of the players’ game being worked on with a leading sports psychologist being brought to the island to help them focus on the mental side of the game.

Dr David Scott is an associate professor of Kinesiology at the University of New Brunswick in Canada and has a particular focus on using psychological strategies to enhance sports performance. In the past few years he has published 15 articles in psychology journals as well as giving 30 national and international conference presentations. He also works with the Montreal Canadiens in the National Hockey League.

Arnold Manders, president of the BCB and executive director Cal Blankendal are delighted to have secured Scott’s services and are looking forward to his arrival next month.

“He’s well respected and is a sports psychologist with one of the leading professional hockey teams in Canada,” Blankendal said.

“He also worked with Cricket West Indies in 2016 and they were successful at that time. The reason we are bringing him in is not just about training on the field. In our culture, which is very small and we all know each other, we’re used to saying things to each other, we can accept it and move on.

“In an international game there is no tomorrow so if you are not focused and you drop a catch, we need to bring that mental strength. We have the talent, we have the players, we have the willpower and the finance but it’s not all about the individual, it’s about the team.

“That’s where the sports psychologist comes in to not only get into the minds of the players but the coaches and to educate all of us. We want to raise the profile of the sport but sometimes we need people from outside Bermuda to give us that information. We need them because players will gravitate online and they will see that this guy has worked with some top professional players and will listen to him.”

An incident in Antigua last year in a match against the United States has left a couple of Bermuda’s players with ICC demerit points and Manders is keen to point out the difference a sports psychologist can make.

“We all need to work on ourselves and that was not as bad as things were made out to be,” Manders said.

“The US players were provoking and prodding but instead of reacting, if you’re bowling, bowl the hell out of them, if you’re batting, keep batting and smash them around. Every time they react badly, one of them gets out or they drop a catch and lose their focus.”

Bermuda is the smallest country to ever qualify for a cricket World Cup after making it to the 2007 tournament in the West Indies but a drop in funding allied to some disappointing results has made it almost impossible to reach that level again according to Manders.

“The country is only 60,000 big and that was a big achievement to qualify and we punched way above our weight even then,” Manders said.

“The problem is we did not have that sustainability as most of the guys retired after that and younger players were not at that level. We are rebuilding but when you lack the funds, you can’t prepare properly.

“We’re no longer one of the top associates and so we don’t get top-level funding. After 2007, we were getting $800,000 from the government, now we are getting $100,000. That’s not blaming them, it’s just the way the economy is. We can’t play any matches at home because the ground at the national stadium is not fit, so when we send our team away the government will pay for government employees but a lot of our money is going towards paying the players for travelling rather than youth programmes.”

The International Cricket Council is a poor relation to football’s governing body Fifa, which has revealed it expects to make $11 billion in the next four-year World Cup cycle with big money trickling down to some of Bermuda’s Premier Division clubs, but cricket is not so lucky.

“Take the money that North Village has been given for their new lights, that all comes from Fifa,” Manders said. “That is a club in the Bermuda Premier League, an amateur league. They received $875,000 just to put up lights and we receive $410,000 to run all our programmes. We are running a national programme at half the cost of one football club’s cost of lights. It’s a challenge.”

But that challenge is one that Blankendal and Manders are tackling head on with a do-or-die approach to World Cup qualification. Bermuda’s task looks easier on paper with the USA already qualified as hosts and the final stage of qualification to be hosted on home soil.

“We’re putting all our eggs in one basket as it’s now easier to win,” Manders said.

“We’re pulling from all sources and there are some developments things that we are putting off as we have an ideal opportunity. I know that the players we have can do it with the right training and now they have got a good coach.

“If they put the work in and they get matches under their belt, we can beat Canada and get to the World Cup. I know that for sure. Now we just have to win one group. Before that, we could come out of the Americas and have to win another global one.”

You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it drink. Manders, Blankendal and Odedra have big plans and are pulling from all of their resources and they are backing their players to produce when it matters.

“They have the talent and I think we have to give the players some credit,” Blankendal said.

“Sometimes the players are being told that they are not willing or they are not able and lack pride, but these guys are working 9-5 and then doing potentially four nights of fitness training now with no compensation for it.

“They do have pride but they have lives and they have mortgages and they are still putting themselves out there for the country, so they do need some respect and admiration”