Having failed to make the most of his opportunities in Trinidad, young opener Treadwell Gibbons put a smile on the face of the coaching staff yesterday with a steady half-century.

It is no secret that top-order runs have been one of the most significant missing ingredients from Bermuda?s cricket since they qualified for the World Cup and Gibbons said yesterday he was happy to have finally delivered them.

?I felt really comfortable out there and I was determined to get something out of today,? he said.

?The pitch was very flat and I knew that if I just stayed there and didn?t do anything stupid, there would be enough bad balls coming my way to put together a decent score.

?I knew beforehand that there was little bit of pressure on and from here it is just a matter of scoring as many runs as I can and making it difficult for them to leave me out.?

Assistant coach Clay Smith was fulsome in his praise of Gibbons.

?I?m very proud of Tready and so is the team,? he said.

?What we all admire about him is his passion for the game and how hard he works at improving as a player.

?Above all he has a real drive to be successful at an international level which is obviously a really important ingredient and what I look for in players.

??It?s not going to work out every time for him but if he keeps working hard and keeps believing in himself he will continue to improve and push for a place in the side.?

Assessing the game overall, Smith was honest enough to admit that on a placid track, a score of 250 should have been achieved.

?I felt we were a little short of where we needed to be,? he said.

?We got a terrific start through Tready and OJ, but when we got ourselves into a position to really go for it, we just didn?t quite deliver.

?Still, opening partnerships are something we haven?t really had for quite a while now so we have to take some positives out of that.

?When we bowled, we bowled as a unit and it worked.

?Virtually everybody did their job well today and pegged Lloyds back at the right times. They came back at us strongly at the end but all the good work by our bowlers earlier on in their innings meant we were able to hang on in there at the end.?

With the team hopping on a plane today for the short one-hour flight to Guernsey, Smith said he was looking forward to the three-match series.

?It?s a series we will clearly look to win well,? he said.

?They were a useful team when we played against them last summer (winning by six wickets) and it would be dangerous to underestimate them.?