The Bermuda Cricket Board has begun advertising for a senior national coach, though they haven’t ruled out Herbie Bascome reapplying for the position after his contract expired on December 31, 2021.

“It is open to everyone, including Mr Bascome,” Cal Blankendal, executive director of the Board, pointed out yesterday.

“The coach will have responsibility, along with the assistant coaches, to prepare and implement a high-performance preparation plan for the national senior men’s squad,” the ad on the Board’s website read.

“The preparation plan will be reviewed and given oversight by the BCB’s high performance committee from time to time.”

The primary duties of the coach shall be to provide various services to the BCB, including, “develop, implement and oversee a comprehensive strategy to advance the national senior men’s team’s international ranking.

“Develop and implement training schedules for the National senior men’s team in preparation for senior team commitments. Develop well planned and innovative team programmes geared at consistently improving overall team performance.”

The advertisement also stated: “Plan, organise, direct and review all national senior men’s team coaching sessions; Design and implement both in-competition and out-of-competition conditioning and skill development programmes and Lead the planning and coordination of practice and training sessions in conjunction with the high performance committee.”

The coach will also be responsible for conducting pregame and postgame analysis with the team analyst (ie, game plans, debriefing) and devise appropriate methods to address findings.

The BCB is requiring the successful applicant be a high-performance coach with a minimum level 2 certification and with at least five years of coaching experience at the senior men’s level.

They must also be willing to be certified to a level 3 coach or high-performance coach within two years of assuming the head coach role.

Bascome first took over the post in February 2019 when he replaced Clay Smith, sharing his vision at the time of instilling more national pride in Bermuda’s top cricketers.

“What I really want is to get the better cricketers playing for Bermuda,” Bascome told The Royal Gazette in February 2019. “I’m fully committed to moving our cricket back towards those high performance levels.

“I encourage players to commit to playing for our country and restoring pride at the national level.”

The Board is looking to have a new coach in place ahead for the new season this summer as the sport look to rebound from two years of Covid-19 restrictions.

“This is a new strategic plan and we’re just trying to be transparent in giving everyone in Bermuda or elsewhere in the world who may wish to apply, to bring their application forward,” Blankendal said yesterday.

“We just want to make sure that everybody knows that the coaching post is open, for Mr Bascome and anyone else. We have opened up the process, similar to how Mr Bascome was hired back in 2019.”

The men’s senior team was last in action under head coach Bascome last November, when they were eliminated in the ICC T20 World Cup Americas Qualifier in Antigua under new captain Kamau Leverock.

In January, the Board unveiled an ambitious five-year plan to improve cricket from the grass roots to the senior national team. Called the 2022-2026 Strategic Plan, it was presented by Arnold Manders, the BCB president, and Blankendal, outlining four specific areas to be focused on, participation, high performance, infrastructure and finance.

“We’ll have a host of openings coming down the pipeline, so even though this is for the national senior men’s coach, there will be opportunities coming along for women and youth teams as well,” Blankendal revealed yesterday.

“We just need to open up the pool to find out who is interested, available and meets the requirement of the selection committee.”