The Bermuda cricket team have turned to the Indian sub-continent in their attempt to qualify for the ICC T20 World Cup next week.

With Bermuda probably needing to beat Canada twice in the Americas Regional Final, which starts on Sunday, coach Cal Waldron has been helped by analyst Sampath Seshadri.

The 30-year-old mechanical engineering graduate from Andhra Pradesh state in the south of India, who previously worked with Italy and the United States, explained how he came to join forces with Bermuda two years ago.

“The BCB came to Gujarat for a camp in India before they played in the ICC World Cup qualifiers in Malaysia,” Seshadri said.

“They tried to contact some of the state associations in India looking for an analyst. My official told me to contact them, as I’d already worked for the US team at international level, so I went to Malaysia with the BCB and although results there did not go as well as expected, the players and staff received me well.”

While the national team failed to progress from the 50-overs Challenge League, Seshadri’s input impressed the Bermuda team enough for him to be kept on for this T20 World Cup qualifying campaign.

He has never visited the island but travelled to Argentina for the first phase of qualifiers and landed in Toronto on Tuesday to link up with the squad.

“When I joined them in Malaysia for the first time, they were all very welcoming,” Seshadri said. “I was very surprised by how they took to the analytics.

“Captain Terryn Fray is a highly skilled cricketer and a sharp thinker. He always likes to have the analytics and he understands the game brilliantly, while the players seem very professional in their purpose and their approach to matches.

“I am excited to see the guys again and they are always a pleasure to work with. I want to sincerely thank the Bermuda Cricket Board as their belief and support in the role of performance analysis has been instrumental to the team’s growth.”

Seshadri has been liaising closely with Waldron in advance of the tournament and provided a dossier on players and pitches for the players and staff to assess.

“It always starts before the tournament,” he said. “I will prepare a report on how the pitch behaves, the par score and the bowlers that will work on those pitches.

“I will also report on the opponents and what types of batter they have and what type of bowlers they are using, particularly in the powerplay.

“We’ll start with the statistical elements and then move on to the video analysis to assess whether there is a particular pattern in how batters are getting out.

“I will discuss with the coach the type of data they might wish to add, and all the staff will have the same presentation. After that we have team meetings before every match and we will share our presentation of the technical analysis with players and staff.

“After the match we have a team review and identify which areas we can improve upon and sometimes an individual batter or bowler will come to me to run through videos and along with the coach help them to improve their performance.”

Without wanting to give too much away about Bermuda’s tournament plans, Seshadri revealed he has identified areas of focus.

“We know Canada very well, we know they are ranked higher but we also we need to beat them to qualify,” Seshadri said

“Bermuda’s bowlers have potential but we need to use them in the right phase of the game. We have three left-arm spinners, two off spinners and two fast bowlers. Zeko Burgess is very good at yorkers and Jermal Proctor is good at bowling slower balls, but they need to be used in the right matchups.”