In exactly one year?s time, Bermuda?s cricketers will be contending with Muttiah Muralitharan and Sri Lanka at the Queen?s Park Oval in Port of Spain, Trinidad ? their World Cup debut.

Taking the opportunity yesterday to reflect on the current state of his national squad and their prospects for the next 12 months, coach Gus Logie was in bullish mood ? confidently predicting that Bermuda?s run of nine straight limited over defeats would be a distant memory once the a full strength XI had been assembled.

?The last few months have been quite disruptive in terms of injury and unavailability,? he said, in reference to January?s Dubai tour debacle when they lost all five games to the United Arab Emirates and were without the likes of Clay Smith, OJ Pitcher and Delyone Borden.

?But I believe in the ability of this team and I think you?ll see an improvement in both the quality of the performances and the results as the year goes on. Yes, people can talk about the fact that we?ve lost nine straight overs games ? but most of those have been when we were not at full strength or were experimenting with different things.

?If you look at our results when we?ve been pretty much at full strength, like in Ireland at the ICC Trophy and in Canada (when they won the regional Intercontinental Cup title) we know we have the ability to play well and beat teams.

?To be quite honest we are still building and I?ve said it time and time again but we have to be patient. We always knew that qualifying for the World Cup was just the beginning and that there would come a time when the results would not work in our favour.

?Sure there are disappointments. With the players having to balance their work commitments with their cricket, it is not possible for me to get them together as regularly as I would like ? but that is the reality of the situation and I have to live with that.

?I can understand people?s frustration at the recent poor run of results but I need to make sure people understand that I strongly believe that when the time comes, and with the return of Clay Smith and the arrival of David Hemp, we will be able to give a good account of ourselves.?

Logie has made no secret of his frustration at the fragility of the top order in recent matches, pointing the finger once again at the block or bash mentality which continues to hamper Bermudian batsmanship in both international and domestic terms.

?The one thing that has pleased me about our batsmen is that they all can play shots and have very good eyes,? he said.

?But singles are part of the game as well! We?ve talked about it before but one of the problems I?ve seen as our inability to rotate the strike and to turn ones into twos and twos into threes by running hard between the wickets. The best one day teams have the ability to do this and the sooner we start the better.?

Much has been made meanwhile of Bermuda?s lack of a genuine wicket-taking seamer ? but Logie is nonetheless excited about some of the young guns at his disposal.

?Young Stefan Kelly is an exciting prospect,? he said.

?He?s lucky to be overseas in the UK and benefiting from a lot coaching and advice and I?m sure we?ll continue to see improvement from him. George O?Brien also will no doubt return from Australia with a lot of information under his belt and be keen to make an impression as well.

?When you factor in the likes of Kevin Hurdle and Ryan Steede you?ve got the basis of a good seam attack. What most of them are missing right now is consistency.

?They can all bowl a good ball or put together a few good overs, but what we need from them now is consistently high standards, getting the ball in the right areas and building pressure. That comes through playing regularly and it will be interesting to see how they will progress this year.?

Beyond the international sphere, the Trinidadian also called for a raising of the bar in domestic cricket as well.

?What we also need is to make sure the standard of our domestic cricket is such that the gap between the leagues and the national team set up is not too large. It has to be competitive and people need to take their cricket seriously.

?I?ve heard of people just turning up at the very last minute before a game and walk straight from the changing room onto the field without so much as a warm up. When looking at the whole picture of Bermuda cricket, this sort of attitude has to change if we are going to improve in the long term.?