BERMUDA’S national cricket team embark on yet another long-haul trip next week — back to Kenya, where memories of last November’s 3-0 one-day whitewash by the Africans will still be relatively fresh.

This time around the challenge is no less demanding — a round-robin flurry of five matches in seven days against the top non-Test countries.

Coach Gus Logie has labelled the World One-Day League, a new one-day competition organised by the ICC, as the Associate nations’ own World Cup.

When the round-robin ends, the top two meet in the One-Day League final, and perhaps more significantly, both qualify for next September’s inaugural Twenty/20 World Cup in South Africa.

On paper, it may appear as just another series of matches in the seemingly never-ending build-up to the ‘real’ World Cup in March.

But the line we hear so often ahead of these types of tours — ‘results don’t matter, it’s all part of the learning curve’ — can no longer apply.

Results do matter.

Those players in the national squad now have sufficient international experience under their belts to know exactly what to expect and what is required in these type of matches.

Whether they can deliver is another matter and given Bermuda’s limited resources in terms of players available, we shouldn’t set our expectations too high. But there are no more surprises.

They learned some harsh lessons on the last trip to Kenya, the three whippings from the host nation followed by equally comprehensive defeats at the hands of Canada (twice) and Holland before a meaningless victory over the Dutch in the tour finale provided some small consolation.

Since then they’ve completed just two other matches, finishing their tour of Trinidad this week, which was largely seen as a training exercise, with what on paper at least seemed like a rather calamitous loss to Caribbean club side, the Wanderers, and then suffering a typical late batting collapse to lose to Clico Preysal.

Perhaps not too much should be read into those defeats, as nothing was at stake and it was purely to give the players match practice on a tour which saw all other games rained out.

But against Wanderers, Bermuda’s last three batsmen were all dismissed without scoring and the tourists’ innings featured five run-outs and in yesterday’s match the last seven wickets fell for just 46 runs. That reinforces the impression that all is still not well.

On the upcoming trip, Bermuda face Kenya, Scotland, Ireland, Canada and Holland — teams which perhaps 15 or 20 years ago they would have been expected to beat handily.

Now it’s difficult to see where their next win will come from, especially as we can’t even beat Trinidad club sides, albeit clubs containing some very talented cricketers.

A warm-up match a week on Sunday against Uganda, a team given World Cricket League ‘Division Two’ status by the ICC and supposedly inferior to Bermuda, will be equally as important as the actual World League games.

If Logie’s men are to enter the tournament with any level of confidence, it’s vital that they put up a good show against the Ugandans, because it gets a lot tougher once that game’s over.

During the trip to Trinidad, some of Logie’s former West Indian Test team-mates tried to impress on Bermuda’s players the importance of self-belief.

But in order to reinforce that self-belief, there have to be results which reflect their ability at this level.

And in every game they play, each and every player has to demonstrate a burning desire to win and recognise that with individual failure, the probability of collective failure increases.

So far in this campaign leading up to the World Cup, that hasn’t been evident.

* * * *

INTERNATIONAL Race Weekend went off relatively smoothly last week.

But why is it that finishing times among the elite runners and even the locals are still so much slower than they were a quarter of a century ago?

In the 10K and the Marathon, records that have stood for over 20 years were never vaguely threatened. And runners who finished in the top five this year wouldn’t have even featured in the top 20 back in the ‘80s.

It’s been that way for some years now, and while the current race committee have vowed to bring in more quality athletes in 2008, it’s difficult to imagine that the golden era of running, when the likes of Andy Holden, Geoff Smith, Grete Waitz, Frank Shorter graced our roads, will ever be replicated.

— ADRIAN ROBSON