eith Pont is one of those people who can light up even the dreariest of subjects.

He has a powerful and infectious enthusiasm for life, and after two hours in his company it is possible to find oneself skipping down the street, hugging complete strangers and mulling over the ramifications of an unfeasibly large donation to charity.

As character traits go, this is certainly a good one to have. Of course, it comes in even handier when you are trying to persuade Bermudians that the 20/20 World Cricket Classic will be just about the most exciting thing to happen on the Island since cars replaced carriages.

The opening game of this inaugural tournament ? the first 20/20 competition of any kind in the world ? begins on April 23 at the National Sports Centre.

As the chief executive of the Get Fit Foundation, the English charity behind the event, Pont has spent the last 12 days charging round the Island like a man possessed on his rented scooter, desperate to ensure that everything is progressing as planned.

The former Essex all-rounder is an unstoppable, irresistible force at present, despite whisperings from some quarters that the overall quality of former internationals he has signed up is not all that impressive.

It is a complaint he confronts with the straightest of bats.

?We are going to put on something which is special and which Bermudians will not easily forget,? he said.

?The Classic is Bermuda?s tournament, something the Island will enjoy immensely and be proud of. These guys might have retired from professional cricket, but they can all still play at a very high level and many of them have made it clear to me that they want to walk away at the end of the week as winners.

?I?ve seen what?s been written about the players we?ve got coming and I understand where that argument is coming from. But I think you?ve got to bear two things in mind. One, this is the first year of the tournament and it will get better year on year. A lot of these guys have been let down in the past at other events they?ve been invited to play at and once word gets around that this is a top quality event, the calibre of the names will only improve.

?Secondly, some of the names mentioned in the press who aren?t coming are actually too old. For instance, the Chappell brothers (Ian and Greg) are almost 60 while Ian Botham and Viv Richards are over 50. Now from my perspective, I think it?s important to strike a balance between big names and making sure the guys are young and fit enough so that the cricket is of a high standard.

?Now if you really want to see a whole load of big name 50 somethings running around out there then fine, but I?m not sure the quality of cricket will be that good. What we have got is the likes of Ian Healy, Aravinda DeSilva, Phil Defreitas, Gary Kirsten and Fanie DeVilliers coming, who are all big names but still young enough to put on a good show. Overall I think we?ve got the balance right.?

In the hail of publicity which accompanied the Classic?s official launch last week, two important facts were left uncovered.

As a fledgling enterprise in the UK, the Classic will be the very first major event the Get Fit Foundation have run and marketed. On top of this, Pont has ploughed close to $100,000 of his own money into the tournament and as such, has more to lose if it proves a flop than anybody previously realised.

?There is a lot riding on the Classic for me personally,? he admitted.

?When we formed the Get Fit Foundation back in 2004 one of the founding ambitions was to establish a big international event to promote sport, fitness and a healthy lifestyle.

?How far we go after this will be to a large extent dictated by how successful the Classic turns out to be. It needs to work ? which is the main reason why I have worked harder on it than anything in my life.?

s a cricketer Keith Pont hardly set the world alight.

In a career spanning 17 years with Essex, he was never more than a journeyman all-rounder in a team overflowing with illustrious names such as Fletcher, Gooch, Boyce and Border. In and out of the first team for much of his time as a professional, he came to be regarded as a limited overs specialist while helping the county during a golden era of success when they won a total of nine domestic trophies between 1979 and 1986.

Even then, however, his chances of a place in the England team were slim and at 33 his place in the county side was being threatened as well.

?I was an average cricketer really,? he said.

?And the thing was that I had to work incredibly hard just to be average. I hung around for a long time though and I count myself as lucky to have been associated with such a fantastic side. The standard of county cricket when I played was seriously high as well.

?Every team had a couple of top class overseas players ? most of whom at that time were fast bowlers. It wasn?t a particularly pleasant time for batsman.

?At Hampshire you had the likes of Andy Roberts and Malcolm Marshall, Sussex had Imran Khan and Garth Le Roux, Derbyshire had Michael Holding, Surrey had Sylvester Clarke, who had to be one of the nastiest fast bowlers around. There seemed to be absolutely no respite.?

To prove this point, Pont recalls with a distinct lack of fondness a game against Middlesex in 1980. Batting in the middle order, Pont came out to face (without a helmet) with the hulking Bajan Wayne Daniel bowling from one end and the Australian Jeff Thompson at the other.

Daniel terrorised county batsman up and down the land for much of the late 1970s and early ?80s and would have played more for the West Indies had it not been for a major falling out with captain Clive Lloyd over his legendary extra-curricular activities. Thompson in his pomp is still regarded by many as the quickest bowler ever.

?You cannot imagine what it was like going out to face those two. As a cricketer I never experienced anything quite like it. Absolute lightning both of them were, but with a little bit of luck I managed to see them off.

?That was the big difference between somebody like me and a Graham Gooch or an Allan Border. Against that sort of pace, I was just looking to survive. I might have nicked a few runs just by staying there but I couldn?t actually even begin to try to get after them. But Goochie was always able to hook, pull and cut them without any real difficulty.

?I remember putting on 72 with Border in one match ? to which I contributed nine! So yes, I was limited, but I could often do a job for the team and justify my place by working incredibly hard to make the most out of what talent I was given.

?I played with and against some of the game?s greats. There were plenty of disappointments. I was often being dropped to the second team when our England players came back from international duty. I?ve been smacked all round the park by Viv Richards. Bowling to Botham one year down at Taunton, he smashed one ball straight back at me in the air so hard that it hit the clock in the stand behind me and completely destroyed it!

?Once or twice I thought I might get a call-up for the England one-day side if there were a few injuries about, but it never worked out that way. I retired because the writing was on the wall.

?A lot of talented youngsters A lot of talkented youngsters were A lot of talented youngsters were coming up through the ranks and I was finding it more and more difficult to hold down a place. But it was a privilege playing cricket for a living and it has opened a lot of doors for me subsequently.?

ike many professionals, Pont initially found life away from the game rather disconcerting. Cricket had been his life from a very early age, and without any qualifications to speak of, taking on the big wide world was a daunting prospect.

His first non-cricketing job was at a small PR firm ? a career he quickly realised was not for him. Spells selling computerised stationery and then sports equipment followed, before he was made redundant in the recession of the early ?90s.

?I was 40 years-old when I got made redundant, I had two children, no qualifications and very little money,? he recalled.

?I really had absolutely no idea where my career was headed. I had originally wanted to do something away from cricket, to prove not just to other people but also to myself that I could make something of myself. But then a friend of mine told me about a part-time job opportunity with the National Cricket Association as a development officer in Greater London and because I had few other prospects I applied and got the job.?

It was not long before Pont realised he had found his niche.

When the NCA and the English national governing body, the Test and County Cricket Board, merged around 15 months later, he was the man chosen to run the development arm on a national scale. Only three years later, when the TCCB was replaced by a streamlined England and Wales Cricket Board, Pont was appointed director of development ? a post he held for seven years.

?As a player I had a reputation as a bit of joker,? he said.

?And to an extent that was true and I played up to that image. But there always was a more serious side to me which I don?t think ever got acknowledged during my career. One of the things that really used to irritate me and still does even now is the idea that unless you played for England, you didn?t know what you were talking about and you didn?t really have anything to offer the game.

?That was certainly the attitude during my time at Essex and it really used to frustrate me because I knew that I had a lot of ideas that could really make a difference to the team and the county, but I was never really taken seriously. I?m still slightly bitter about that.

?Since I retired I?ve set out to prove that just because I was an average county cricketer, it does not mean that I couldn?t be a real asset to the game more generally.

?Cricket development is about looking at the bigger picture and working out how you are going to get young people playing the game on a more regular basis and how you make sure the best of them progress through the ranks and make the most of their potential. By the end of my time at the ECB the development department was the most organised and progressive around and I take great pride in that.

?I didn?t always see eye to eye with the hierarchy there and I was known as a bit of a maverick. But in my opinion you only make real progress if you?re prepared to be bold. You cannot be afraid of upsetting people.

?As you probably know, 20/20 cricket has really taken off in England since it was introduced as a domestic competition a couple of years ago. But I sat in on committee meetings at the ECB when they were first considering introducing it and you wouldn?t believe the number of people who were suggesting that it would harm the game because it would encourage poor techniques.

?It went through eventually but it took an awfully long time for some people to see that 20/20 cricket is not about technique but a marketing tool for a new generation which thrives on instant gratification.?

t was his reputation as a bit of a loose cannon which Pont believes undermined his application for the top job at the ECB in 2004, a role eventually filled by businessman David Collier, whose softly-softly approach to change in the English game sat far more comfortably with the 18 county chairmen who still wield enormous power in English cricketing politics.

With Collier in the hot seat, Pont soon realised his management style would not be overly welcomed, and he left not long after with the amicable consent of his boss.

Pont?s Get Fit Foundation was formed somewhat by accident.

Having put on a considerable amount of weight during his time at the ECB, he began running, swimming and cycling on a regular basis. He became enthused by the whole process as the weight dropped off and on a whim he decided to approach training consultants and current GEFF directors Stephen Blackman and Caroline Knox with the intention of writing a book and producing a DVD about being healthy.

?I wasn?t really sure where it was headed and at that stage I didn?t really care. But we did the book, and through some very good contacts managed to get Gary Lineker and Francois Pienaar to take part in the DVD.

?And then, all of a sudden we realised that the whole thing was beginning to grow. We even had the government express interest in what we were doing.

?In November, 2004, I flew to Bermuda for the Rugby Classic and met (organiser) John Kane, who expressed interest in expanding his operation into other areas. As I said before, we had been looking to put on some kind of high profile event and having taken one look at the infrastructure available in Bermuda, it was obvious that it could work.

?It?s not been an easy task organising an event like this and there is a lot of pressure to make sure we get it right. But if you truly believe in something, then you really do have to go that extra mile.?