has hit back at comments from current Board president El James who last week blasted the previous administration for "a lack of foresight''.

While admitting to failings on the part of the Ed Bailey-led era, Lawrence noted there had been several positive aspects during his tenure and said there was no need for mudslinging between the current and former administrations.

"It doesn't make sense for El or anybody else to be throwing stones at anybody about who fell down or what we done,'' said Lawrence, who resigned from the Board in 1997 along with then president Bailey, second vice-president Ellsworth Christopher, secretary Wilton Smith and assistant secretary/treasurer Wally Manders. "What we need to say to ourselves is `What can we do to lift our cricket from here'.

"I'm not here to point fingers at El or Ed Bailey or anybody. I was a part of the administration and will have to take the blame...but when it was good I was there too.'' Lawrence pointed out how it was the previous executive who negotiated Bermuda's entry into the Red Stripe competition, presided over Bermuda's ICC Tournament loss against Zimbabwe in 1982 when a win would have garnered one-day status, as well as initiated incoming tours by Test and other high quality teams.

And he disagreed with James regarding the need for Bermuda to play against outfits closer to our level.

"We've been doing that for so long...we now have to play against top teams, but to do it we need money,'' said Lawrence.

James' main criticism has been over the collapse of the Island's youth programme. However, Lawrence deflected that jab, placing the responsibility in the hands of individual clubs.

Said Lawrence: "It wasn't the BCBC that allowed youth programme to fall by the wayside, but the clubs who allowed it to fold up.

"Who does cricket belong to? Cricket belongs to the clubs, they are the BCBC.

"You can go from Somerset to St. George's today and won't find two teams training. Before you could go -- for instance up Somerset -- and see tons of people out there playing cricket, but not today.

"So, you can't blame any one administrator. Today you have so much competition with other sports like basketball, track and field and a lot of other distractions taking away from cricket.'' Lawrence added that there was a need for the establishment of a local cricket academy to nurture and develop talent as they do in top cricketing nations such as South Africa and Australia.