Bermuda all-rounder Saleem Mukuddem has suggested the national team were ?sitting in the comfort zone? throughout their disastrous tour of the United Arab Emirates and only had themselves to blame for the humiliating series whitewash.

Straight back to work yesterday, having only just returned from the exhausting nine-day Middle East tour on Tuesday, Mukuddem was in no mood to beat about the bush, arguing the hunger for success that epitomised the squad?s approach in the run-up to the ICC Trophy last year was conspicuous by its absence throughout their time abroad.

UAE were no more talented than Bermuda, Mukuddem added. They were simply more professional.

?I could give you a zillion excuses, but at the end of the day we all let ourselves down,? he said.

?I wish I could say we were up against a team who were ten times better than us but I can?t.

?Man for man we should have been beating them or at least giving them a very good game. The difference was that they applied themselves far better in virtually every game and were much more professional in everything they did.

?We seemed to lack intensity and some of the time it felt a bit as if we were all just going through the motions.

?The feel good factor and the euphoria surrounding our qualification for the World Cup has very definitely run its course and all of us players need to go to that special place and find the hunger all over again.

?We had a lot of team meetings on tour in which a lot of heartfelt things were said. But there is a big difference between sitting in a room discussing what is going wrong and actually getting out there and putting it into practice.

?Particularly with the batting, we knew what was wrong and what we had to do, but most of us went out in the middle and made the same mistakes over and over again. We played a lot of loose shots off perfectly good balls and when we bowled we never put the ball in the right place consistently enough to build up pressure.

?We are obviously making the transition at the moment from amateur to semi-professional, but that change has got to be reflected in the way we approach our cricket.

?We have to be a lot more professional and disciplined, particularly when we go away from home and are playing in different conditions.

?I kind of got the feeling on this tour that we rocked up to games expecting the opposition to roll over and die just because we had qualified for the World Cup and they had not.

?That is obviously not a good attitude to have and we paid for it.

?So from this point on we all need to take a long hard look in the mirror and decide how we are going to raise our games. We?re all in this together and we all need to be on the same wavelength.?

The root of Bermuda?s troubles in UAE was the sorry performance of the batsmen. Not a single half-century was registered in any of the five matches, with Mukuddem claiming the tour?s highest score of 49.

The national squad have no more commitments until April when they fly to Trinidad for a series of matches ? although the opposition have yet to be confirmed.