Irving Romaine, the Bermuda skipper, knows the pressure will be on his side to re-qualify for the World Cup in South Africa next month.

The Bailey's Bay stalwart is one of seven survivors from Bermuda's team that competed in the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies who will be looked upon to play leading roles in next month's tournament.

At the previous World Cup qualifying tournament in Ireland, Bermuda managed to grab one of the four qualifying spots on offer and with the right approach and consistency Romaine sees no reason why his team cannot re-qualify for world cricket's premier showpiece.

But even he admits his team's path to glory is a long and narrow one for with the success of four years ago comes expectation and with expectation ultimately comes pressure.

"We've played lots of the teams and beaten them before but it's going to be a hard tournament," Romaine said.

Romaine captained Bermuda to Intercontinental Cup regional honours in 2005 and a year later led his country to a maiden Americas Championship.

Now he hopes to be the man to lead Bermuda to a second straight World Cup and remains optimistic his team can achieve their primary objective in South Africa.

"I give us a very realistic chance for us to make it to the World Cup and if we play to the best of our abilities and remain consistent we should qualify," he added.

"This team is very good; a lot younger and a lot quicker in the field – and that's a big difference from the last squad."

Bermuda are fresh off a highly successful tour of the Caribbean where they compiled an impressive 9-2 record playing against teams from Trinidad, St.Lucia, St.Vincent and Grenada.

However, the real test lies ahead in South Africa where the Islanders will rest their ODI status on the line.

Bermuda's squad boasts the exciting talent of all-rounder Christopher Douglas - who hit a half-century on his ODI debut against the West Indies last year – batsmen Stephen Outerbridge and Fiqre Crockwell as well as the mercurial Lionel Cann who has the potential to destroy any ICC Associate attack whenever he digs in.

In seamers Stefan Kelly, George O'Brien Jr. and Kyle Hodsoll, Bermuda have three opening bowling options while the larger than life Dwayne Leverock leads the Islanders' spin attack.

Romaine added: "My expectations for the tournament are for Bermuda to play hard and qualify for the World Cup.

"We have good players who will be firing on all cylinders."

The right-handed, hard-hitting batsman said that World Cup qualification will help promote and re-stimulate the game in Bermuda.

"Since we played in the previous World Cup interest in the game has increased and a lot of young people are getting involved as they've seen us on the TV.

"So if we qualified I think it would make the nation's support of cricket even stronger," he added.

"It would be amazing and if we were to qualify for the World Cup it would mean a lot for cricket here in Bermuda.

Qualifying for another World Cup would make cricket even stronger."

Bermuda depart for South Africa on Sunday and are scheduled to meet Namibia in an official World Cup qualifying warm up match March 28 at Willowmoore Park B.

Bermuda (squad): Irving Romaine (captain), David Hemp, Christopher Douglas, Fiqre Crockwell, Lionel Cann, Stephen Outerbridge, Jekon Edness, Janeiro Tucker, Glenn Blakeney, Dwayne Leverock, Rodney Trott, Tamauri Tucker, Stefan Kelly, Kyle Hodsoll, George O'Brien Jr.