Bermuda Cricket Board were supposed to receive $400,000 in Friday’s Budget The Royal Gazette understands.In a split that was expected to reflect ‘equity, fairness and proportionality’, the Department of Youth and Sport is –believed to have originally recommended that football and cricket get $450,000 and $400,000 respectively.Instead, cricket received just half that, while football’s grant rose back to $750,000, still a drop of $250,000 on the previous year.It is not uncommon for Budget recommendations to be sent back to their relevant ministries to be changed, especially if more money needs to be trimmed from a particular department, although that doesn’t appear to be the case here.Not that it seems to have taken everyone by surprise. A member of the Bermuda Football Association, whose president is former Attorney General Larry Mussenden, confirmed yesterday that they knew as early as mid-January some elements of what the Budget was going to entail, specifically the amounts cricket and football would be receiving.With a wage bill of some $600,000 cricket will now struggle to pay staff salaries, let alone support anything else.In contrast there is little change in salaries or overheads generally within the Department of Youth and Sport, as the $1m that has been lost from the department’s budget has been absorbed entirely by the various sporting governing bodies.Elite Athlete Assistance has had its grant halved to $100,000, while sailing, which had believed it would be designated a national sport, received no extra funding.Despite The Gazette’s repeated requests for a response, Glenn Blakeney, the Minister for Youth and Sport, declined to comment.