Dubai, 12 March 2009
Captain Romaine says qualification for the Cricket World Cup 2011 will boost the game in his country even further
With success comes expectation and with expectation comes pressure. After qualifying for the last ICC Cricket World Cup in the West Indies, the Bermuda team knows nothing short of the same will satisfy the cricket-mad inhabitants of that beautiful island nation.
Captain Irving Romaine and coach Gus Logie have been putting the side through its paces on a pre-event training camp around the Caribbean which has seen the squad come away with eight wins out of 10 against sides from Trinidad, St Lucia and Grenada. But the real test is still ahead.
The side is full of exciting talent with Christopher Douglas, Stephen Outerbridge, Fiqre Crockwell and Lionel Cann all leading from the front when it comes to batting.
Meanwhile, the bowling line-up still features the familiar face of slow left-armer Dwayne Leverock and the 37-year-old leads an attack that includes the likes of fellow spinners, Rodney Trott and Delyone Borden as well as the fiery George O’Brien Jnr.
Romaine has no qualms about stating his objective for the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier, which gets underway on 1 April, and he clearly believes his side will be lining out with the best teams in the world come 2011.
"I give us a very realistic chance for us to make it to the World Cup," said the skipper. "We’ve played lots of the teams and beaten them before but it’s going to be a hard tournament and if we play to the best of our abilities and remain consistent we should qualify," he said.
"My expectations for the tournament are for Bermuda to play hard and qualify for the World Cup. We have good players who will be firing all cylinders."
The right-handed, hard-hitting batsman believes victory and qualification will bring an even bigger following to the game in Bermuda.
"It would be amazing and if we were to qualify for the World Cup it would mean a lot for cricket here in Bermuda. Qualifying for another World Cup would make cricket even stronger.
"Over the past few years since we played in the previous World Cup, interest in the game has increased and a lot of young people are getting involved as they’ve seen us on the TV so if we qualified I think it would make the nation’s support of cricket even stronger."
Bermuda (squad): Irving Romaine (captain), David Hemp, Christopher Douglas, Fiqre Crockwell, Lionel Cann, Stephen Outerbridge, Jekon Edness, Janeiro Tucker, Glenn Smith-Blakeney, Dwayne Leverock, Rodney Trott, Tamauri Tucker, Stefan Kelly, Kyle Hodsoll, George O’Brien.
Listen to the full interview with Irving Romaine at http://icc-cricket.yahoo.com/cwcq/audio.html.
This captain’s interview is one of 12 being sent out in the days leading up to the start of the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier. The schedule for those releases is as follows (including those that have been sent out already):
31 Jan – confirmation of all 12 participating teams
10 Feb – fixtures and venues confirmation
10 Mar – squad announcements (all 12 squads)
Releases (12) in the month beforehand, each focusing on one of the teams:
11 Mar – Namibia
12 Mar – Bermuda
13 Mar – Scotland
16 Mar – Ireland
17 Mar – Afghanistan
18 Mar – Canada
19 Mar – Netherlands
20 Mar – UAE
23 Mar – Uganda
24 Mar – Kenya
25 Mar – Oman
26 Mar – Denmark
In addition, there will be further tournament previews and other features sent out before the event gets underway on 1 April.
In total there are eight venues being used for 54 matches played over 19 days with 12 teams fighting it out for the four qualification places on offer in the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011.
The ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier, formerly known as the ICC Trophy, incorporates Divisions 1 and 2 of the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League and is the gateway for the top Associate and Affiliate teams into the premier one-day tournament in the world.
Day one of the event offers up perhaps the most eagerly awaited fixture of all with defending champion Scotland taking on fierce rival Ireland in an ODI at Willowmoore Park in what will be a repeat of the final in 2005.
Among the teams will be Afghanistan and Uganda, which both qualified from January’s Pepsi World Cricket League Division 3 event in Buenos Aires. The WCL was created to provide a clear pathway for teams outside the top 10 towards improvement and ultimately, the ICC Cricket World Cup. This global event gives ICC Associate and Affiliate Members the opportunity to play similarly ranked sides in meaningful competition regardless of where they are located in the world.
The 12 teams taking part in the ICC Cricket World Cup Qualifier are split into two groups of six teams. Ireland, Scotland, Canada, Oman, Namibia and Uganda make up Group A while Kenya, Netherlands, Bermuda, UAE, Denmark and Afghanistan form Group B.
Each side plays the other teams in its group once with the top four from the groups progressing to the Super Eight stage. The teams each play four Super Eight matches against the sides they did not meet in the group stage. All points won in the groups will be carried over to the Super Eight stage apart from those gained against the bottom two from each group.
The top two teams in the Super Eight stage will contest the final to be played at Centurion on 19 April. The third and fourth-placed sides will play-off at Potchefstroom, the fifth and sixth-placed sides play off at Willowmoore Park while the seventh and eighth-placed teams play off at Stan Friedman Oval, Krugersdorp.
The top four sides at the event qualify for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2011. The top six teams secure ODI status until 2013 and also qualify automatically for the ICC Intercontinental Cup 2009-10.
The bottom two teams from the CWCQ, which incorporates Divisions 1 and 2 of the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League, will be relegated to Division 3.
ICC MEDIA RELEASE