Lessons learned" was the headline on these pages earlier this week after the national cricket team's thrashing by Namibia.

What lessons might they be?

Former coach Gus Logie won't have been surprised when he heard the result.

He spent four years here teaching the basics of the four-day and 50-over game and it seems no one was listening.

Other countries gave similar lessons as they proceeded to beat the living daylights out of our national team, and again nobody took any notice.

The same mistakes have been repeated over and over again.

Yet whenever the squad travel abroad the same old excuses are trotted out.

'We're in the process of rebuilding, 'we only have a small pool of players to choose from', 'we don't have enough practice matches', 'we play these matches out of season', 'our best players are unavailable'.

Some are valid, others just don't wash anymore. Since qualifying for the World Cup more than four years ago, the number of matches won by Bermuda can be counted on one hand.

The team, no matter what the make-up of the XI, have been consistently battered by the likes of Namibia, United Arab Emirates, Canada, USA, Holland, Scotland, Ireland, even club teams in Trinidad. And, of course, in the World Cup where nobody expected a victory, but neither did they expect a record low in the number of runs scored and the number of runs conceded.

As new coach David Moore observed when he watched the first day of their four-day match against Namibia last Saturday ' they've lost that winning mentality'.

No kidding!

And talking of Moore what happened to him for the rest of the match? While it hasn't been announced by Bermuda Cricket Board, he apparently had to fly back to Australia to complete his contract with the Australian Cricket Academy. He could have seen out that contract earlier but was left waiting until his work permit was issued in Bermuda.

It's clear he had informed the BCB of his intentions long before the game, but it was unfortunate he was unable to witness the shambles during his absence and get some idea of the enormity of the task ahead.

There's no doubt that some of the excuses mentioned above might have contributed to the embarrassing defeat this week – an innings and 185 runs. It doesn't get much worse than that in a four-day game that lasted only three.

It should be noted that Namibia were also blooding new players. Twenty-one year-old Ewald Steenkamp cracked a double century, twice the total of his previous best score.

Practically all of their players are amateurs and while Namibia is a much larger country than Bermuda it's sparsely populated with the majority of its cricket played in and around the capital Windhoek. In fact, it's the second least densely populated country in the world, after Mongolia.

And only a small percentage of its 2.1 million people play cricket.

To be fair, Namibian cricketers have had chance to play club sides and national teams in neighbouring countries but it's unlikely they've suffered the kind of defeats inflicted on their opponents this week.

Here in Bermuda, the governing body employ more full-time staff than any other sport, and in recent years have had some $11 million handed over by Government and thousands more presented by the world governing body, the ICC – all intended to further cricket development.

But the sport, certainly at the senior level, has deteriorated almost beyond recognition from the '70s, '80s even '90s .

Along with making a very weak effort to qualify for the next World Cup, they even lost One-Day International status, which previous teams had worked so hard to attain.

Again, most disappointing is the way in which players have continually failed to grasp what it takes to play at the next level.

In Namibia, wickets were needlessly thrown away and bowlers couldn't find the length and line that would worry any of the opponents' bats. Add to that some sloppy fielding, the slim chances of pulling off a win, even a draw, were highly improbable.

Captain David Hemp and vice-captain Stephen Outerbridge showed leadership qualities but it wasn't enough. And Irving Romaine's century in yesterday's one-day game was a case of too little too late.

To eliminate long standing bad habits, reputed disciplinarian Moore will have to do what no other coach before him has been able to achieve – instill a sense of responsibility.

He'll find plenty of natural talent but a complete lack of application.

If he were to call Logie, he'd be told little has changed since he departed.

* * * *

Fortunately there has been a brighter side to Bermuda's sporting achievements overseas this week.

Both the athletic and swimming teams returned from the Caribbean with a bunch of CARIFTA Games medals.

While cricket has declined, track and field and swimming have been shaping national programmes that are now reaping rewards.

The crop of youngsters involved in both of those sports have had to push their social life aside, put in hours of training every week and have been prepared to listen and learn.

That's why they returned to the airport this week with heads held high.

The cricketers might want to slip out the side door.

– ADRIAN ROBSON