AS a new year approaches, those who follow sport ? and on this Island there are seemingly few who don?t ? will be looking ahead with a sense of anticipation.

Regardless of what unfolds over the next 12 months, the year 2007 is already assured of being one of historic significance.

In terms of new ground being broken, it may well prove unprecedented.

Consider the following:

In just under three months, Bermuda?s cricket team will take part in a World Cup finals for the first time, the smallest nation in terms of both size and population ever to perform on such a grand stage.

At the same time golfer Michael Sims will be plying his trade on the Nationwide Tour, the first Bermudian to have attained such lofty status on what is undoubtedly the most competitive and cut-throat of all individual sports.

A little further down the road Shaun Goater will lead a national football team into the United Soccer League, a leap into the professional arena which local players have long yearned for.

Teenager Flora Duffy, the most talented female athlete this country has produced in decades, will be rubbing shoulders with and ? if this year?s performances are anything to go by ? leaving in her wake the elite of triathlon.

In between, Bermuda will be sending teams to the Pan-Am Games in Rio de Janeiro and to the Small Island Games in Rhodes, Greece, while our young Optimist sailors, currently competing at the Worlds in Uruguay, will be reinforcing the belief they are as talented as any juniors anywhere around the globe.

For much of the year, we moan and groan about our sporting failures and perhaps tend to overlook accomplishments which for a country this size border on the unbelievable.

It?s inconceivable that towns across the US or Europe with populations several times larger than Bermuda could come anywhere close to producing such a diverse and successful pool of sportsmen and sportswomen.

The main focus of 2007, of course, will be on our cricketers.

In less than a month?s time they head back to Kenya to compete in Division One of the World One-Day Cricket League, that in itself a major stepping stone in the development of the local game and a strong indication of just how far we?ve progressed.

But it will be in Trinidad in March under the glare of a TV audience of millions that those same players will be able to write a new chapter in cricket history.

No matter how they perform ? and there are many who fear for their reputation ? they and the rest of Bermuda should take pride in the fact that they?ve already stepped beyond expectations.

As rank underdogs, they have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Given their one-day international record in the last year, it?s difficult to see how they might emerge without some painful scars.

Yet the beauty of any World Cup lies in its unpredictability.

Who could have imagined unheralded Kenya reaching the semi-finals? Yet four years ago in South Africa long after some of the mighty Test nations had packed their bags and left for home, that?s exactly what happened.

It?s unthinkable that tiny Bermuda could reach those same dizzy heights. But the prospect of humbling one of the sport?s giants will surely send thousands of Bermudian cricket fans south this Spring and leave the remainder glued in front of their TV sets.

And even should they fail to deliver, as most expect, there?s an awful lot more to look forward to in what promises to be an intriguing year for Bermuda sport.