What home advantage?

Lionel Cann Home advantage…. What home advantage? I’ve been waiting to play in front of a home crowd since we qualified for the World Cup. Now, after my first international game in Bermuda for over four years, I’m starting to think I prefer playing away. No spectators, nothing but negative remarks and the ball turning square is not what I’d call home field advantage. I don’t need to say too much about the pitch. It wasn’t the worst I’ve played on but 18 wickets in one day sums it up. We could cope with that to play in front of a home crowd, but there was no crowd — maybe 50 people. Even for the game against Scotland — which was our first at home in four years — there was not even 100 people there. Maybe people don’t like the longer version of the game. I’m sure the crowd would have been bigger if it was 20-20. But the bottom line is people just don’t support the national programme. People don’t support their country. I feel I also have to comment on the negative press. We’ve received a lot of stick over the years but the ultimate was Saturday. The words this guy (The Royal Gazette’s Josh Ball) used to describe the team were over the top and flat-out disrespectful. I can tell you the players would have liked to have got him out on that wicket for ten overs and had use him as a dart board and see what comments he made after that. Seriously, you expect bad press in sports, particularly when results aren’t going your way. But for me that was way overboard. We’re still people. I don’t think you would see any other team in the world getting that kind of stick from their home press. The upside of this is that it really reminds me of where we were four years ago. The same press was trashing us, we were surrounded by the same negativity but we came through and we qualified for the World Cup. We have to respond to all this in the right way. We’re going to stick together and we’re going to fight and we’re going to prove people wrong.

Comments

[Tryangle]

I have to say that the newspaper coverage of Bermuda's matches hardly differs from what is printed in the Caribbean papers when the West Indies have struggled. When the Windies gets thrashed the clarion call often goes out for heads to roll both players and management. It's nothing new.

The paragraph "Here though are a few to start with - dimwitted, unintelligent, brainless, stupid, lazy, stubborn, courageous, determined." in the report is the most offensive of all and I think that Lionel Cann would be justified in protesting those insulting remarks, however it appears that Josh Ball was asked to provide personal commentary as well as the match report and thus he's probably allowed to have opinion on the performance of individual players within the context of the game.

As far as support goes, the powers that be dropped the ball and allowed for apathy to build up over the years that Bermuda couldn't host ODIs. I attended the Saturday of the Scotland match and if there were 40 spectators I'd be shocked.

Hate to say it, but Bermuda will have to build up support from ground zero again. And because to many Bermudians, Namibia and Scotland aren't household names, getting that home support is going to be a difficult process. It may have been of benefit to get a West Indies side here for some ODIs. Canada's set to host a 20-20 tournament featuring Test nations, we have nothing. Perhaps BCB could have encouraged local support by postponing some or all domestic cricket for the weekends that there are international fixtures, and allowed for people to attend the international games.

As for preferring 20-20 to four-day matches, you yourself said that you prefer the game. When the BCB went with a two-day league the players didn't enjoy it so it was scrapped. Teams couldn't even field full sides. Players and fans here like the wham-bam version, even though it doesn't necessarily produce better cricket. The Stanford tournament again exposed Bermuda as not ready.

Right now, Bermuda cricket seems to be in a tough situation. The national squad is struggling at the bottom of the Associate Division 1 standings despite individual achievements to be proud of (e.g. Outerbridge, Kelly, Leverock, Douglas). The Government investments in cricket look like they'll produce results at the youth level, which is great. But the senior men's team is at the bottom of the Intercontinental Cup standings, and ranked a poor 13th among Associates in ODIs (CricketEurope stats, but it's all we have).

It's a long fight back, and most people think that Bermuda will easily lose ODI status in next year's ICC qualifiers. Coach Logie has expressed his own feelings many times, for example recently he said, "If we want to compete and win at this level we can't afford to make the same mistakes such as getting out the same way over and over, which tells me that we are not assessing situations as well as we could. There are areas where we feel players still need to put in more effort into their own game and understand it is a team game and not an individual game."

Most, both here and abroad, have written off this Bermuda men's team. So with backs against the wall, the team must respond with grit and determination. The World Cup qualifiers are 6 months away or so it's time to dig deep.