BERMUDA lost to Jamaica last Friday.

Let's try again. Bermuda got absolutely spanked by Jamaica last Friday.

Or how about: a part-time Bermuda team were completely outclassed by the Jamaicans last Friday.

OK, one more time. Bermuda's part-time, somewhat out-of-shape amateurs put in one of their worst performances in recent times against eight Jamaican Test players who were fired up and desperate to win $1 million, creating a result which looked disproportionately bad for Gus Logie's men and made the usual 'what-a-waste of $11 million' criticisms spring up once again.

For the same reasons that semi-professional teams take on Premiership teams in the third round of the FA Cup and somehow manage to force a draw but get beaten by about five or six goals in the replay, Bermuda went into this game full of hope that, although it was a tough proposition with the potential for very public failure, there was also a chance for a historic upset.

Despite pre-Tour complaints from the coach that the team were under-prepared for the Standford 20-20 clash in Antigua because sometimes only five of them could make it to training, there genuinely was a chance they could get a result against Chris Gayle's men.

If everything had gone right, if Lionel Cann, Dean Minors, Irving Romaine and Janeiro Tucker had produced the shots they can, if Sluggo and Hasan Durham had bowled as tightly as they can and if George O'Brien had managed to fulfill all his potential, Bermuda could have just about beaten Jamaica on an off-day.

Unfortunately two things happened which didn't help their cause ? Jamaica played well . . . and Bermuda were awful.

Jamaica, with eight Test players and plenty of pre-match training including a residential camp, were on fire.

Jerome Taylor bowled extraordinarily. In fact Bermuda pretty much faced the West Indies opening attack on a good day, and they suffered. The plan for the opening pair to beat off the openers failed due to a mixture of Kwame Tucker's freak injury and very, very tight and deadly bowling.

Throw in the deadly spinners and fielding so sharp you could cut yourself on it and then the mighty blows struck by powerful batsmen and you have a very good Jamaica team playing very well.

Combine that with some poor shot selection and the failure of Bermuda's Big Four batsmen to get more than six runs between them, not to mention some of the worst fielding you are ever likely to see on slow-motion replay ? OJ Pitcher you know who you are ? and the gulf between the two teams was exaggerated.

To make matters much worse, the whole thing was televised, allowing a Bermuda public, who constantly remind the players at grounds across the island that they are paying the $11 million, to see in glorious technicolour and in replay after replay exactly how far behind the best players in the world their team are.

Throw in some commentators who think that the heavy Bermudians are fair game for gags about rolling the pitch among other things and a producer who thinks a slow-motion panoramic of Sluggo shoehorned into his kit is worth ten seconds of TV time and it makes for a horror show the national side could have done without.

And when Tony Cozier, acting as post-match announcer and therefore effectively part of the tournament, decided that it was worth asking Jamaican wicketkeeper Carlton Baugh Jr. if he could see the ball being bowled with Sluggo standing in front of him, it became clear that Bermuda were being regarded as somewhat of a joke.

It was a thoroughly miserable, eye-opening trip for Logie's men and, with the media likely to be even more harsh come the World Cup, it is something for them all to think about for the next few months.

Admittedly there is a lot that needs improving in the Bermuda side, but let's not forget they are the first team ever to qualify for the World Cup and, as Sports Minister Dale Butler so eloquently put it, 'if a child falls, we don't slap them, we help them up'.