The progression of Irving Romaine?s batting has been one of the success stories of the cricketing year ? but the Bailey?s Bay stalwart knows there?s still room for improvement as he heads to a training camp in South Africa next week.

Along with Bermuda?s reserve wicketkeeper Kwame Tucker and seamers Kevin Hurdle and Stefan Kelly, Romaine has been picked by Gus Logie to spend five weeks at Pretoria?s High Performance Sports Centre.

The programme is run by the International Cricket Council and will involve players from all the other Associate nations who qualified for the World Cup, with the aim of getting them ready to compete on the grandest stage.

Stephen Outerbridge, Azeem Pitcher and Jim West attended the same camp last year.

According to both Logie and Romaine yesterday, the ICC had originally asked each country to send four players who were pretty much certain to feature in the World Cup squads.

But with several of Bermuda?s core players making themselves unavailable for the trip, the group ultimately selected was not as strong as Logie and the Bermuda Cricket Board would have liked.

Nonetheless, Romaine is well aware of what a fantastic opportunity he has been presented with and was relieved when his wife and family gave him their blessing to go.

With Bermuda?s tour of Kenya and South Africa starting almost straight afterwards, barring serious injury Romaine is likely to be away from home for over ten weeks.

?It?s going to be very intense,? he said.

?From what I understand the camp will be a very controlled environment and while we will have weekends to do what we want, the rest of the time we will be on a very strict schedule.

?We will not just be concentrating on cricket either. We also get training on how to deal with the media and the etiquette expected of an international player ? it?s a total package.

?I?ve spoken with Gus quite a bit about what to expect and I?m aware there?s going to be a lot of fitness work as well ? almost like a fat farm!

?So overall I?m sure it?s going to be very interesting. Another thing which will be useful is actually getting to meet and spending time with the players from other countries and talking to them about their experiences and where they?re at right now in terms of their overall development.?

It is an acknowledged fact that Romaine is one of the most naturally gifted players Bermuda have at their disposal and has been the team?s most consistent performer with the bat this year, regularly topping the batting averages on each tour.

A particularly powerful driver of the ball through the cover region, his explosive cutting and pulling has also caught the eye this year ? though he has been criticised in the past for lacking the necessary patience and appropriate shot selection to score hundreds in the lower echelons of international cricket.

As time has gone on, however, Romaine has increasingly shown he has what it takes to turn promising 40s and 50s into match-winning contributions, scoring a terrific century against Canada in Toronto last month and averaging over 70 on that tour overall.

?I?m feeling good about my batting at the moment, and this trip is all about continuing to develop my game and getting me ready to play against the best teams in the world,? he said.

?I know I?ve been guilty on a few occasions of getting out when I?ve got a decent start. For me it?s all about getting myself in the right frame of mind to concentrate for long periods and recently I?ve been able to do that. Before we qualified for the World Cup, I never really had to do that so it has been a question of learning as quickly as possible and I should be a better player after this.?

One of the venues selected to host warm-up games just prior to the World Cup will not be ready in time, organisers announced yesterday.

The $350-million Brian Lara Stadium in Trinidad has run into construction difficulties and is several months behind schedule ? despite the contractor?s assurance it would be completed by December.

The four teams scheduled to play matches there are South Africa, Canada, Ireland and Pakistan ? with the games now likely to be moved to the much-smaller University of the West Indies Ground at St. Augustine.

Trinidad is the host nation for all of Bermuda?s group games against Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh, which will be played at the Queen?s Park Oval in Port of Spain.