Bermuda’s top cricketers are beginning their preparations for the North American Cup under a different coaching structure.

After announcing the 25-man training squad for the tournament, which is scheduled to take place in the Cayman Islands from April 4 to 12, the Bermuda Cricket board has outlined significant changes.

Cal Waldron, who coached the team after the departure of Niraj Odedra at the end of 2023, has moved to the post of technical director, with the BCB choosing not to hire a direct replacement.

Instead local coaches Herbie Bascome, George O’Brien Jr and Janeiro Tucker will work with Mahesh Hatkar, from India, who is based on island.

BCB president Lloyd Smith, who is also high-performance committee chairman after the retirement of Allan Douglas Sr, spoke of the reasons behind the change in philosophy.

“As this point there is no head coach for the Bermuda cricket team,” Smith told The Royal Gazette.

“The high-performance committee put together a coaching panel that will deal with the different aspects of coaching, that is batting, bowling and the typical areas of the team for now.

“Our coaching panel is small at the moment with Herbie Bascome, George O’Brien Jr, Janeiro Tucker and Mahesh Hatkar, the Indian coach working with Janeiro at his academy, but it’s going to increase.

“We can always add Bermudian coaches to that panel if we have a need and we have the assistance of Andre Coley from West Indies, who is still available to us as a consultant.

“Until we assess and then try to find a head coach, that is how we are coaching the national team at this moment. We have people in charge of fitness, psychology and physiotherapy, but no head coach.

“We’ll let the coaching panel do all the coaching and deal with all different aspects of cricket until the high-performance committee makes their recommendations on who will be the head coach going into the North American Cup.”

Smith also revealed that Waldron had been tasked with creating a programme to boost coaching skills on the island.

“Cal Waldron has moved on to a bigger project and is now the director of coaching,” Smith said.

“He has been instructed to develop coaches in Bermuda from a senior level right down to the youth. We’ve put in place programmes to make sure that the coaches are qualified.

“He’s starting from scratch and putting together a programme to ensure that in the future, we have sufficient coaches for all levels.”

The 25-man squad had their first taste of the new regime when they were invited to a presentation by the high-performance committee on January 15.