ONE might have thought that after Bermuda’s historic first appearance at a World Cup the rest of the Island’s cricketers would have emerged for the new domestic season enthused and eager to impress.

Seemingly not.

The Two-Day League opened last weekend with barely a whimper.

National team skipper Irving Romaine’s club, Bailey’s Bay, couldn’t even raise a side. Neither could Police, once one of the country’s top teams, who quickly declared their intention to pull out altogether. Devonshire Rec. could muster no more than nine players for the start of their game.

Generally, nobody seemed the slightest bit interested in playing the longer version of the game.

National coach Gus Logie must have been mightily impressed! — just what he wanted to see as he begins plotting the national side’s course towards qualification for the next World Cup in less than two years’ time.

Logie made the point, and it’s been made by several before him, that you can’t live on a diet of one-day cricket alone, although that appears to be the only form of the game — Cup Match apart — in which local players show any interest.

You simply can’t expect to develop world class players by restricting them to the ‘wham, bang, thankyou ma’am’ type of slugfest often required of a 50-over contest.

As the coach explained, batsmen have to be allowed to bat and bowlers allowed to bowl without the pressure and expectation of immediate results.

And the only way to develop and improve technique is by spending more time out in the middle — time afforded only by the two-day type of game.

Clearly it’s a problem in somewhere as small as Bermuda with each club relying on a limited pool of players. Not everyone can take two days off work to play cricket. Not everyone can sacrifice time which could be spent with wives, sons and daughters.

So there has to be a compromise.

And the best suggestion put forward so far — one that when initially proposed was rapidly shot down by the clubs — is that the two-day competition currently contested between clubs be replaced by a similar league comprising of parish teams.

The advantages are obvious. The pool of players available for any one team instantly becomes larger, thus the onus isn’t on any one player to turn out every weekend. The competition would allow the various clubs to combine their strengths with others, ideally resulting in a stronger league and a higher standard of play.

The league could even be split into eastern and western divisions, with perhaps an east-west final ultimately determining the parish champions.

Companies based in the various parishes could be asked to sponsor the respective sides, and somehow two-day cricket might just be given the shot in the arm it so desperately requires.

It seems already an awful lot has been done this season to develop the game at grass roots level with under-10, under-13 and under-16 leagues showing enormous promise.

But there’s no point in encouraging the kids if there’s nowhere for them to go once they reach senior level.

A thriving two-day league is essential to the sport’s growth.

And if the clubs can’t make it work, then turning to the parishes might be our best alternative.

* * * *

NOBODY can fault the new May 24 Marathon Derby organisers on their enthusiasm.

With the big race just a week away they’ve been feverishly promoting the event with a bundle of fresh ideas and new initiatives, hoping to raise the field to a record number of entrants.

Whether that happens remains to be seen.

But somebody needs to warn them they’re flirting with Bermuda’s heritage and toying with tradition.

The Marathon Derby has long been one of Bermuda’s greatest sporting events, and perhaps one of the most colourful, atmospheric and exciting road races held anywhere in the world.

If you ask the majority of runners who have competed over the years, and the thousands who have watched from the sidelines, records don’t mean a great deal nor anybody’s particular finishing time. Everybody who survives that leg-aching, gut-busting trek from Somerset to Hamilton is a winner.

And whoever crosses the line first has bragging rights for the next year, no matter what their rivals achieve elsewhere.

The exact distance of the course? Who knows? It’s been changed so many times nobody cares.

The Derby’s a unique race.

That, sadly, is about to change. Organisers have carefully measured out a 13.1 mile route with new finish and start line to make it an official half-marathon . . . an official half-marathon like hundreds of others around the world.

We already have a BTFA Half-Marathon in November and the Race Weekend Half Marathon in January.

We don’t need another one.

May 24 has always been quirkily different. What a shame the new kids on the block couldn’t keep it that way!

— ADRIAN ROBSON