Today’s game with Zimbabwe will be the third time the sides have met inside the last 12 months. And for Bermuda’s sake, it is to be hoped that there won’t be a repeat of what happened last time around.

In May last year, the national team travelled south to Trinidad for a triangular series involving both Canada and Zimbabwe — a tournament where Bermuda would play their first ever official One Day Internationals sanctioned by the world governing body.

After a tremendous win in their opening encounter against Jon Davison’s Canadians, Gus Logie’s men faced back-to-back clashes with the southern African team at the Queen’s Park Oval in Port of Spain.

In fairness, expectations going into those games were modest at best.

The Zimbabweans had just had their Test status revoked because of a mass exodus of the vast majority of their best players in a racially-charged political dispute which continues to this day. They had also just come away from a 5-0 one-day series mauling by the West Indies.

But it was widely believed that they were sufficiently equipped to deal comfortably with a Bermuda team still finding their feet in international cricket.

Unfortunately for the Island’s best the commentators were absolutely spot on, and what followed was a classic illustration of the yawning gap in standard between the Full and Associate members of the International Cricket Council which, in many cases, continues to exist

In the first match on May 21, Zimbabwe won the toss and predictably elected to bat on a recently-laid Oval track which was expected to take spin.

Bermuda rested George O’Brien jr and Dwayne Leverock for that game, in which case their attack lacked an element of cutting edge.

But even still the Zimbabwe batsmen played the bowling all-too easily — racking up a score of 338 for seven. Vusi Sibanda, the Zimbabwe opener, scored a languid 78 while their pugnacious wicketkeeper-batsman Brendan Taylor stroked an untroubled 98.

In reply Bermuda were all over the place from the outset, with only the now-forgotten Treadwell Gibbons jr (33) and skipper Irving Romaine putting up any sort of resistance as the team reached only 144 for seven in reply. For the final game two days’ later, meanwhile, Bermuda were much improved but still easily out-classed, going down by the more respectable margin of 83 runs.

Having been set a more realistically obtainable total of 259 to win — which included a hundred from Sibanda — the national team never once looked likely to reach the target, as Zimbabwe’s young offspiner Prosper Utseya applied a stranglehold from which there was to be no release.

Over the course of the two matches, Zimbabwe has shown themselves to be fitter, quicker and more talented.

As a young side without any superstars who were trying desperately to stay afloat in the upper echelons of international cricket, their team ethic and professionalism were more advanced than Bermuda’s.

They relied also on everybody contributing in at least two facets of the game. There wasn’t a weak fielder among them, while their running between the wickets continually embarrassed Bermuda’s ponderous fielding.

Logie’s charges are a lot wiser these days — despite the sloppy nature of recent defeats — and could, if they play their best, provide the Zimbabweans with a much stiffer test.