Scrapping Cup Match trials, beginning Open cricket in May, a new two-day competition, and a new code of conduct are just some of the suggestions that came out of a meeting between club officials and the Bermuda Cricket Board this past weekend.

The brain-storming session was the start of a long-term discussion into the structure of cricket in Bermuda about what needs to be changed, what needs to be improved and what needs to be done away with altogether.

A concern over the problems that plagued the season this year, from scheduling difficulties to poor discipline, prompted the meeting and threw up some interesting ideas on the way forward for the game. Chief among them was a widely held acceptance that the return to Open cricket did not work.

The attitude of the clubs towards the competition did not help, but neither did its position in the fixture list, with the jumbled mess of Twenty20 games, 50-over games, and Open cricket, leaving players wondering if they were coming or going.

Whatever the feelings towards Open cricket, and it is a generally unloved competition at the moment, the BCB believe it is necessary in some form if Bermuda are to improve in the ICC Intercontinental Cup. Limited overs cricket, they agree, is not rigorous enough to prepare the Island's players for the four-day game.

One suggestion, controversial though it may prove, involves beginning the season with a longer form of the game, and finishing it with Cup Match. Attached to that is the idea that Cup Match trials are scrapped entirely.

Players would have to decide before the season begins whether they wish to be considered for St George's or Somerset and are then selected on their performances over the course of several months, rather than in a couple of one-off games that were described by one person at the meeting as a 'farce'.

A slightly more radical approach was a return to a two-day competition with four zonal teams – West, Central West, East and Central East – playing a competition with selection for Cup Match based on performances in this contest. Added to that though was the caveat that only players eligible to represent Bermuda could play, creating an elite league, and giving the national selectors the chance to choose a Bermuda team from a bigger group of players.

Central to the need for change was the concern over the way last season was plagued with difficulty in even getting games played. Most clubs agreed that cricket tapered off after Cup Match, and so to try and avoid a repeat, 50-over cricket and a Twenty20 competition would begin afterwards.

There was also a suggestion that a lack of incentive towards the end of the season meant that leagues petered out when it became obvious who was going to win, or who was going to be relegated.

Too often in the past it has been easy for clubs to either not show up, or claim that a game can't go ahead. Next year, there is the possibility that teams will be docked points for a failure to play a game, but those points will only be enforced at the beginning of the following season.

So, for example, if a side decides not to play for any reason, they will start the following season on minus two points, or more if they do it more than once.

The idea marks a desire within the BCB to clamp down on some of the ill-discipline and poor behaviour that has been associated with the game on the Island in recent years.

While there is a willingness to add incentives to the game, such as the return of the Most Valuable Player award, there is also a firm belief that new code of conduct needs to be implemented and rigorously enforced.

Clubs would be required to sign up to this at the beginning of the season, and by doing so would be accepting a new disciplinary code that would see a one-match ban automatically enforced for any player who swears at another player, or questions the umpire, or is overly aggressive when a decision goes against them.

These are things that are seen on a regular basis at games the length and breadth of the Island, and it is hoped that by stamping down hard on these incidents, the BCB will gradually be able to clean up the game.

The desire to improve cricket in Bermuda is real, as is the need to improve. It now depends how much willingness there is amongst the clubs to do so.

The recent meeting was the start of a process that will see how serious the clubs are to implement change.