While the national team returned from Canada last week as champions of the Americas and have been praised from the rooftops for their success, events at a domestic level have regrettably begun to overshadow their tremendous efforts.

Since the conclusion of Cup Match there have been numerous league and cup games cancelled, an umpire shortage, teams unable to raise 11 players and an umpire assaulted and verbally abused.

In fairness, compared to previous years this cricket season has witnessed a marked decrease in the number of disciplinary incidents reported to the Bermuda Cricket Board and it is to be hoped that this trend continues.

But as Gus Logie implied in a candid interview earlier this week, Bermuda?s cricketing prosperity is, in some respects, somewhat of a con: a shiny new Porsche with the engine of a Morris Minor lurking beneath the hood.

While the governing body are rolling in cash and the national team continues, by and large, to punch above their weight, the domestic scene as a whole remains in an utter shambles.

On the face of it, one would have thought that a governing body which is to have $11 million given to them over the course of the next four years would be capable of ensuring the domestic programme runs efficiently.

Yet the reality is that very little, if any, of that $11 million is to be allocated towards the development of Bermuda?s crumbling sports clubs as the costs of World Cup preparations, players? salaries, educational scholarships and overseas academy stints continue to monopolise the BCB?s greatly-expanded budget.

Some would suggest that the newly-enriched Board has not made solving this clubs crisis a priority ? an argument which appears to have a degree of merit.

But whether you agree with that or not, what is becoming increasingly clear is that the biggest obstacle to progress is not the BCB, but rather the clubs themselves.

With one or two exceptions, most sports grounds in Bermuda are still in an embarrassingly run-down state.

Many of the clubhouses are in need of major renovations, virtually all grounds do not have anything verging on adequate practice facilities while those who witnessed the quality of the pitches in Canada during the Americas Championship have been shaking their heads in disbelief at the shoddy, and sometimes dangerous surfaces, that predominate here.

A vibrant youth programme has also become an exception to the general rule.

Yet rather than make some tangible effort to get their own houses in order, the clubs invariably prefer to blame others.

Inexplicably and quite unjustifiably, they have somehow come to expect handouts, without being able to show, in many cases, that they are responsible or ambitious enough to use the money productively.

The allocation of Texas billionaire Allen Stanford?s $100,000 for infrastructure development is a case in point.

The Board made it very clear from the outset that the clubs were at liberty to apply for whatever funding they wished, but that they would have to be organised and provide comprehensive details of what they needed and how much they thought it would all cost.

Two months later the Board announced they had received only three applications, while the fact that some clubs have subsequently not received what they were hoping for was because the proposals they submitted were invariably half-baked and poorly thought out.

And given the track record many clubs have for properly maintaining their facilities once installed, it is hardly surprising that not just the BCB, but also the corporate sector have been hesitant to invest in them.

At St. John?s Field in Pembroke, Western Stars built two new Astroturf nets in the far corner of the ground which were in use by the start of the season.

It cost them a few thousand dollars and were very much needed, but only three months later those nets have been totally smothered by weeds and rendered unplayable.

For those who care deeply about the future direction of Bermuda cricket, it is enough to make you cry out in frustration at the unadulterated laziness that allows these sorts of things to happen on an all-too-regular basis.

While the clubs must and should do more, it is also important to look at the Government?s role in all of this.

It is now well over three years since the Clubs Commission was ?established? and the promise clearly made to do something significant to arrest the alarming decline.

One million dollars was even put aside in the Budget to be spent on the clubs while Commission head Rolfe Commissiong was charged with producing a study of where the problems were and what the plan of action should be.

A first draft of that report has now been handed to the Sports Minister, but why it has taken such an extraordinary long time for this to happen has not been adequately explained and when we will actually see some money being spent is anybody?s guess.

So while the Government throws millions of dollars at the BCB, and the Premier dons a Bermuda shirt and smiles sweetly for the cameras whenever the team wins, they are ultimately failing in their duty to face up to an underlying structure which is rotten to the core.

Nobody should pretend that the challenge is not a large one ? but it must be quickly confronted if our money is not to be squandered on a sport which has neglected to nurture its roots.