Cricket in Bermuda faced `extinction' before El James took over at the helm, according to the outgoing Bermuda Cricket Board of Control President, writes Colin Zuill.

Reflecting on his three years in office, James, who stands down this evening at the BCBC's annual general meeting, said his administration had made great strides to correct past problems.

"Cricket was threatened with extinction, we had no youth programme, we had no senior programme with anybody to feed into it, the sport was heading downhill,'' he said.

"Our entire cricket situation is definitely in better shape now. Right now, you have a national coach, you have an under-13 team, an under-15 team, an under-19 team and we had none of that before.

"As a result those senior players presently in the squad are being challenged. They are being challenged now and they are going to be challenged and pushed out in the very near future by these youngsters coming through."

Seemingly forgetting about the Roland Butcher debacle which led to the then national coach resigning from his post under a cloud just months after taking over last year, James said he believed he had the right man in charge now.

"Our overall situation has indeed improved, especially when you consider the fact that we went so long without a full-time national coach," he said. "Now we have Mark Harper of Guyana who is keen and is enthusiastic. He is looking to change the local programme, he is looking for new developmental ideas all of the time.

"On top of that we have also got many of our local coaches qualified to the second level and hopefully in the next month they will be first class coaches as well. Once you increase the coaching base you increase the instructional and development base and you see some results along the way.''

According to James, the development of a youth system has been his most significant achievement.

While admitting it still is not running as smoothly as he had hoped at this stage, he is satisfied that he has laid a solid foundation for the new administration to build on.

"During the three years that we have been in office we can claim all sorts of success but the main area is the Youth programme," he said. "Yes, we got it started. It's a success, we have resurrected the programme, we have resurrected some interest and we do have a batch of very, very talented youngsters right now who we didn't have three years ago. But (that said) it's not running the way we want to be running to date.

"I would hope that the new administration will strive towards perfection in this area because what it does, you know we have an obligation to the sponsors who expect for any programme they support to be of the highest quality possible and if there was one thing I would look back and consider to be a personal failure is the youth programme in that is has not reached the perfection level I expected.''

The fact that the Under-19s failed to qualify for the Cricket World Cup was upsetting and the failure of the senior national team to do well at the ICC trophy in Toronto, Canada last year was disappointing, but James still felt that Bermuda was on course to restore it's credibility - at least among countries in the Americas region.

"Let's get one thing straight, I am satisfied that the youths are benefiting from our efforts. We had no youth programme when we took over, right now we have an under-15 national team who are regional champions, we have an under-19 team that was runner-up in the regional competition when most of the competitors even felt that we had the better team," he said.

"If we go back a few years ago we had an under-19 team that couldn't win a game, so we have made tremendous strides.

"Yes, we were disappointed in that we failed to qualify for the World Cup. But if anyone looks at last year's ICC team as being a failure, I disagree.

"I would refer to the 1979 ICC team in England, one which I was a part of. That team was expected to get a place in the World Cup and we failed. If we were going to do an inquiry into any team that failed that should be looked at, we had the talent to go all of the way.

"But last year how many people realistically expected the team would qualify? Not many I bet. We haven't had a youth programme, no development programme, no national coach, still do not have proper training facilities, so we have recycled players over the last ten years and it's tough to get by like this.''