Bermuda were always confident of being able to defend their score of 225, all-rounder Saleem Mukuddem insisted after their series-clinching triumph against Guernsey yesterday evening.

The South African will play no further part on this tour after sustaining what physio Craig Brown believes to be a very minor groin tear while bowling ? though he displayed enormous character to carry on in spite of the discomfort to pick up three crucial wickets as Guernsey pushed for the win.

?It wasn?t all that easy, but it was a crucial stage of the game so I needed to stay out there,? said Mukuddem while sitting outside the King George V pavilion surrounded by contented team-mates and applying ice to the injury.

?Even at half pace I was able to do a job and actually it might have even worked in my favour because with the ball not coming on to the bat they seemed to find it harder to get the ball away.

?We performed well today in the field. Whenever you are defending a total against a decent side, there are always going to be times when things don?t go your way and they put on a couple of decent partnerships.

?But we stuck to our game plans and held on to some fantastic catches. Every time they got something going, we seemed to be able to get the breakthrough.?

Despite this, however, Mukuddem admitted Bermuda should have scored at least 40 or 50 runs more than they ended up with.

?Our game plan from the start was to go out there and be aggressive ? and it definitely paid off in the first 20 overs,? he said.

?Delyone batted well and I really enjoyed coming in at number three with a licence to play some shots, even if I should have gone on from there.

?This time round though we lost a few wickets quickly in the middle order and made lives difficult for ourselves. But at the end of the day we put together a score over 220, which is always respectable, and we had the runs on the board and the pressure was on them to put up a good chase.

?But we?re happy to have won the series. We talk a lot about process and performance and the emphasis on this tour has been getting these right rather than worrying about winning. But I can?t pretend that winning is not a good feeling and hopefully we can finish it off in the final match and go home on a high.?