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Trott backs Island to rise to challenge

Rodney Trott has called on Bermuda to ‘step-up’ and believes the team will finish among the top spots at next month’s World Cricket League Division Two tournament as long as they focus on winning and ignore everything else.There is a lot riding on the event in Dubai, with the Island’s High Performance grant and Division Two status at stake if they don’t perform.Not that Trott is thinking about the consequences of failure, and he doesn’t want anyone else to either.“We can’t concentrate on what’s at stake, we’ve just got to play cricket,” he said. “If we play cricket to the best of our ability then everything should work out, that’s how I see it.“You try not to worry about anything else. When you’re on the field you’ve just got to worry about winning the game. Doing the basic things right, if you can do that, there’s no way we shouldn’t come out near the top.”The Bermuda squad have been working all winter towards the Dubai tournament, and Trott said the national side were looking ready.“So far everybody seems like they are up to it, this is a big tournament. We have no choice but to try and do good, because a lot of stuff is riding on it,” said Trott. “Everybody has been coming out to train, everyone has been working hard, and it looks pretty good.“Certainly there is the talent in the squad. Irving (Romaine) has come back in, it’s unfortunate that Stephen (Outerbridge) couldn’t make it, he’s been batting pretty good the last couple of years for Bermuda.“He’s one of Bermuda’s better players right now, so he’s unlucky, but other people are just going to have to step up, and if everybody does what they’ve got to do, then we should be alright.”Trott and fast bowler Malachi Jones are certainly prepared for the Division Two tournament, the pair spent the early part of the month at an intensive ten-day cricket camp in St Kitts.Along with the other top cricketers from the Americas region, Trott and Jones were given specialised coaching by a host of top-flight coaches.“They had us doing a lot of different stuff, they had..it was all different coaches,” said Trott. “You had a batting coach, a bowling, a fielding coach. It was all game situations, and sometimes they would split us up and we would do different sessions, and then everyone would do a session for an hour and a half.“It was all different type of stuff. That was one of the best camps I had been to so far.”Trott spent a lot of time with spin bowling coach Chris Brown, from England, and said everything that he had learned would be invaluable to him and Bermuda in Dubai.“I learnt a lot, especially when it comes to bowling and batting,” said Trott. “They had a spin coach there, so I got to work with him, a lot, and he was helping with different things.“And, like I said, even when it comes to the fielding drills, drills that we learnt, we could easily do some of that stuff in Dubai, it will help. It was all about team stuff, it was good.”Bermuda leave for Dubai tomorrow night, and will have three warm-up games before the tournament begins on April 8. They face UAE next Monday, Hong Kong, a week on Saturday, and their last warm-up game is against Namibia on Monday, April 4.