Being a talented young cricketer these days doesn?t just guarantee you a shot at World Cup glory ? it might also win you an education overseas as well.

Courtesy of the now well-endowed Bermuda Cricket Board, Bailey?s Bay opener Stephen Outerbridge and Western Stars wicketkeeper Jekon Edness will be leaving on Monday to begin three-year sports science degrees at the University of Wales Institute Cardiff (UWIC), which boasts one of the six specially funded Centres of Cricketing Excellence in Britain.

BCB chief executive Neil Speight, the man behind the initiative, has also struck a deal with UWIC?s director of sport David Cobner, to allow both of them to suspend their studies periodically to play ? if selected ? for the national team.

?I spent a few days last summer travelling around the UK looking at the different Centres of Excellence and I decided that UWIC was the perfect fit for our boys,? Speight said.

?I have made it clear all along that we at the BCB are looking at the long-term picture for Bermuda cricket and not just at the World Cup next year. We are using the new funding to send as many young players away as possible, either to cricket academies in South Africa and Australia or to schools and universities. What we are interested in is the development of young players as people as well as cricketers and this is another step in the right direction.?

Speight hopes that other parents with cricket-playing offspring will seek to take advantage of future sponsorship opportunities from the BCB.

?I want to make it clear that this is not the end of it and we want to let parents know that there are serious advantages for their children if they are ambitious about improving as cricketers and getting a good education,? he said.

Outerbridge and Edness are not the first Bermudians to be awarded a BCB scholarship.

St. David?s seamer Stefan Kelly is now into his third year at Oakham School in England and looks set to attend university across the pond as he continues his quest towards becoming a professional cricketer.

Edness, meanwhile, was about to take up a place at the University of Miami before the BCB approached him with a far better cricketing alternative.

?I was looking forward to going to Miami but all of a sudden the Board stepped in with an offer I could not refuse,? he said yesterday.

?My father was about to sign a lease on an apartment in Miami as well, but luckily we held off for as long as we could to see if a spot at Cardiff would become available. When it did, I did not have any doubts about where I wanted to go. I?ve got a great chance now to continue my education as well as push for a place in the national team.?

Outerbridge was equally thrilled with the news ? particularly as a lack of funds had forced him to return home in the summer after finishing a course at London?s Westminster University.

?It?s a great opportunity and I need to thank God, my family and the Board for making it a reality,? he said.

?Cricket is my first love and I want to go as far as I can in the game, although I know education is important as well. I?ve now got a good excuse to develop both and try and stake a claim for a place in the World Cup squad.?

If selected for the first XI at UWIC, both Outerbridge and Edness would play first-class matches against various county sides.

They could also find themselves taking on Bermuda?s latest recruit David Hemp in a three-day friendly match against Glamorgan at the very beginning of the English summer.