ERMUDA left this week bound for Kenya to take on the ICC Associate members in the World Cricket League competition. This will be the last time Bermuda travel abroad before going to the Caribbean to get ready for the World Cup where they will take on the likes of such powerhouses India and Sri Lanka along with Bangladesh in the group B matches.

And Bermuda's head coach, Gus Logie said before flying out to Kenya that he wants to see the island's national players regain the confidence and belief that they had during the summer of 2005 when Bermuda qualified for the World Cup at the ICC Trophy in Ireland where they finished in fourth place.

"This is the last big tour before we go to the West Indies," said Logie. "And what I will be looking for is for the players to improve their confidence.

"At the end of the day it all comes down to the word 'belief'. When we go to the Caribbean for the World Cup we have to take belief with us. It is the World Cup and it is not going to get any bigger than that."

Since that glorious summer of 2005 when things tended to go a bit overboard after qualifying for the World Cup, Bermuda's team have had its ups and downs.

The recent training tour to Trinidad was certainly not a success and neither was the tour to Kenya and South Africa at the end of last year.

And Logie has been trying to not only work on the players' physical game but also their mental one.

He said: "Coming out of this tour to Kenya we want to see the players confident in their own ability and feeling much more confident in their teammates ability and also being supportive of each other. I think if we can see that our performances will improve.

"We saw that in Ireland in 2005. We achieved great things over there and I am hoping for the same sort of unity that we had in Ireland at the ICC Trophy."

And Logie also believes that because the two finalists in this World Cricket League competition in Kenya will go to the Twenty20 World Championships later this year, it could also help the Bermuda players.

"There is a lot at stake as well down in Kenya," he said. "There is the opportunity to qualify for the Twenty20 World Championships and these are things that our players have to aspire to. I believe that those kinds of goals add a lot of value to the competition. It is not just practise for the World Cup which is valuable enough in itself. But it is being able to qualify for the Twenty20 World Championships that will give our players even more incentive to do well and I think the players will play accordingly.

"I am looking forward to the guys to come out of this tour feeling really good about themselves and their own cricket."

And if Bermuda does qualify for the Twenty20 World Championships Logie said that the players are very aware there was a lot of money at stake ? $250,000 to the finalists of the World Cricket League.

"Any extra motivation is always good for the players so they can raise their level of cricket and I want to see their belief system rise.

"There is a lot of money involved and it is a good fillip for the island," he said adding that he hoped that Bermuda's Tourism Department would also get on the bandwagon and promote the island when Bermuda's team was competing abroad.

"I think the tourist board should take note that the cricketers are going all over the world and representing the island and that they give Bermuda some very good exposure."

The ICC Twenty20 World Championships will begin in September this year with a 12-team nine day event in South Africa composed of all all 10 Full Members as well as the two Associate members from the World Cricket League competition.

The members of the ICC Board have embraced Twenty20 cricket while at the same time managing its growth," said ICC Chief Executive Malcolm Speed. "South Africa has been an early-adopter of Twenty20 cricket and will be an excellent first venue for the ICC Twenty20 World Championship. "The legacy of the ICC Cricket World Cup 2003 means that South Africa already has in place exceptional facilities and expertise and we are very confident that the United Cricket Board of South Africa will host a tremendous event.

United Cricket Board of South Africa Chairman Ray Mali said: "Twenty20 cricket has captured the imagination of the South African people over the last two seasons and we are delighted to have been asked by the ICC to host this first international event."

The start of the World Cricket League in Nairobi was brought forward this week by 24 hours after the authorities at the Jaffrey Sports Club said that the match could not be staged on January 30, the scheduled date, as it fell on the Islamic holiday commemorating the Day of Ashura.

As a result, the Kenya v Bermuda game will be played on Monday, January 29, the day before the other two opening matches.

The ICC and Cricket Kenya were only advised of this on Monday, and the tournament's technical committee considered the issue and decided that in order to cause as little disruption as possible to the event, it would rearrange the game.

The Jaffrey Sports Club is an Islamic-based ground, unlike the other two venues at Nairobi Gymkhana and Ruaraka.

The ICC World Cricket League Division 1 involves the top six Associate teams. As the six teams in this competition have all qualified for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007, the WCL Division 1 is being used as part of their preparations for the event, which opens in Jamaica on March 11.

The idea of the WCL is to give regular global one-day cricket opportunities to the top 18 non-Test countries. Apart from Division 1, the next eight best from the ICC Trophy 2005 have been allocated to Division 2 and 3 events later in 2007 along with the top teams from five regional qualifying events.

Promotion and relegation will be possible between divisions as each team seeks to move up the world cricket rankings.

The Bermuda Cricket Board said this week that it will provide live ball-by-ball coverage of Bermuda's games in Kenya on its website www.cricket.bm

Those games are:

29 January - Bermuda v Kenya

31 January - Bermuda v Ireland

2 February - Bermuda v Canada

4 February - Bermuda v Netherlands

5 February - Bermuda v Scotland

7 February - Final