Bermuda Cricket Board are adamant that the recent troubles with the pitch at the National Sports Centre will not affect the Island's chances of hosting World Cup warm-up games.

Neil Speight, the BCB chief executive, yesterday admitted that last week's fiasco at the NSC, which saw three teams fail to muster a score of above 200 in four separate visits to the crease, had had "far from positive repercussions" for Bermuda cricket but insisted the current difficulties would not undermine "the broad excellence" of the bid submitted to the tournament organisers.

Bermuda was named as the first reserve location back in July to host group stage games for the World Cup in 2007 and as a result, looked the firm favourite to be allocated warm-up games involving a number of high profile teams.

"Obviously the problems with the pitch were far from helpful given that we had the West Indies here on a high-profile visit," Speight said.

"But given that the tournament is in 2007, I don't think the pitch will be a factor which counts against us in the long term. For now we are going to have to work with Government and the NSC Trustees to see if we can get to the bottom of the problem and put it right. But I really cannot see the organisers making a major decision based on the pitches as they are now."

Meanwhile, Sports Minister Dale Butler told yesterday he had been in contact with the Trustees regarding the controversial square and is currently awaiting a report from them on how best to proceed.

One of the options being considered, he revealed, is to re-lay the square entirely with imported soil, saying that "there are ways of getting around" the environmental dangers posed by foreign bacteria in soil brought in from overseas.

"The Trustees are in the process of looking at the problems and assessing the options available to them," he said.

"They will then submit to me a report with a number of recommendations and then I can act. If they believe that re-laying the square is the right thing to do, then I will have to sit down with the Environment Minister and work out what we can do.

"It is possible to import foreign soil ? we already do so in some instances. But until I receive that report I cannot move the issue forward."

In a separate development, reports surfaced last week that Guyana's World Cup preparations had hit a snag, after it was alleged that the International Cricket Council was unhappy that the firm contracted to undertake the construction of the new cricket stadium had little or no experience of building sporting stadia.

BCB officials were buoyed by the news, as Bermuda are set to gain if one of the eight selected host countries from the Caribbean drops out, although the ICC and World Cup organisers were quick to rubbish what they termed as "sloppy journalism".

"Reports of countries, specifically Guyana, having stadium plans rejected are not true," said Don Lockerbie, the World Cup venue development director.

He admitted however that some venues were "making more progress than others" and said his team were encouraging those lagging behind to "up the curve as quickly as possible".