Four years ago, when Bermuda qualified for the 2007 Cricket World Cup, an editorial in this newspaper warned that the national team would have to work hard to raise the standard of its game if it was to avoid humiliation in the actual event.

We also said that improvement was also going to require heavy investment in the game.

The investment certainly came – a euphoric Government promised $11 million over four years for the sport.

The improvement did not last, at least judging by the national team's performance in this month's qualifying tournament in South Africa.

To be sure, Bermuda did not disgrace itself in the 2007 World Cup, although it was undeniably outclassed. And the Island has some promising young players who should form the nucleus of the national team for years to come.

But what needs to be asked is whether the $11 million pledged to cricket, and the $15 million later pledged to football, was worth it.

This newspaper had reservations about the size of both investments, not because investment in sport is wrong, but because the spending dwarfed funding for other sports and cultural efforts.

It also seemed to send the wrong message to the national bodies, which seemed to be awash in cash with little accountability for how the money was spent, and little need to get financial support from elsewhere.

Of course, Government has now reneged on both commitments, using the recession as cover, throwing both organisations' plans into disarray.

But the truth is that far too much money was promised in the first place. The taxpayer should not be required to carry virtually the whole burden of the Island's national sports.

Investment in youth sport is deserved, but the development of large bureaucracies for the relatively small number of adult players engaged in the sport is hard to justify.

Clay Smith noted in his column in The Royal Gazette last week that Bermuda sent not one, but two teams to South Africa – one of veteran players in their mid- to late 30s and the other of players in their teens and early 20s. What was missing were the players in their mid- to late 20s who should have been at the top of their games.

Their absence was due in part to the disciplinary problems and ego clashes that plague Bermuda sports, but also to the decision of an earlier BCB administration to scrap youth cricket almost entirely.

A generation of cricketers was lost as a result, and it was not until El James took over as president that youth development began in earnest again.

It is those players who are now breaking into the national team.

To give the current BCB administration its due, it has built on that foundation and Bermuda has a promising number of young cricketers. It is on these players that Bermuda cricket should focus now.

In doing so, though, all involved need to know that money is no substitute for desire and hard work, and that stardom in local sports means virtually nothing on the world stage.

It is to be hoped – although given the excuses that have been offered from all and sundry, it seems unlikely – that that lesson has been learned by the team in South Africa.

Now both football and cricket will have to make do with less – but perhaps players and administrators will be more realistic about what is needed to succeed on the world stage.