Bermuda Cricket Board president Lloyd Fray has labelled a weekend training camp in the UK involving seven of the Island’s young national team players a success.

The players — including four, Christian Burgess, Terryn Fray, Tre Manders and Kamau Leverock, who will represent Bermuda in next week’s Twenty20 World Cup Qualifiers in Dubai, United Arab Emirates — participated in the two-day training camp in Horsham, England where they learned to play the conventional sweep shot, reverse sweep, and batting against spinners.

Also taking part in the camp organised by England cricket Board level 4 coach Phil Hudson and conducted by level 4 coach Alan Duncan and level 3 ECB coach Mark Nash were Onias Bascome and Delray Rawlins, both standby players for the Dubai trip, and Greg Maybury.

Fray expressed satisfaction with the progress made by the Bermuda players, stating: “The Board has recognised the importance of a structured programme and assessment for its overseas players.

“I have been very pleased by the hard work of the locally based players and I am heartened by the quality of this weekend high performance camp.

“The fact that Bermuda has seven players under the age of 21 that are either in the squad or on standby is testament to the quality of our internationally recognised development programmes and high performance pathways.”

On the first day of the camp the focus was on batting against spin and T20 game plans, which included rotation of the strike and developing an understanding of scoring areas. In the morning session the players were put through four specific skills:

• Conventional sweep

• Sweep variations (reverse sweep etc)

• Hitting down the ground on the floor by using feet to spinners

• Hitting over the top to spin using feet to spinners

The afternoon drills included a batting skill assessment on manipulation of the ball into eight specific areas within a maximum of 30 balls. The drill and assessment was then repeated with the outcome that the player performances had improved.

Day one finished with a debrief and a warm-down in the pool.

Day two of the camp was aimed at improving T20 match plans and tactics, including:

• Using skills learned in day one

• T20 game plans

• Dealing with pressure and competition

• How to play at different stages of the game

National coach Arnold Manders will no doubt be encouraged by the weekend camp ahead of the team’s departure for Dubai.

Following a recent trip to Fort Lauderdale, Florida where the national team lost all three practice matches, Manders expressed concern about the lack of exposure for Bermuda’s batsmen to top class spin bowling.

“We don’t have quality spinners and the size of the fields don’t help,” Manders said in a Royal Gazette article following the trip.

“Here, they can play around and mis-hit a ball and it goes for six and they are out of trouble, whereas out there you would be caught. We have been working on some things in training and I can see an improvement, but it is not good enough.”

The Bermuda team, captained by veteran all-rounder Janeiro Tucker, leaves for Dubai this weekend and will play two warm-up matches on Tuesday and Wednesday against Italy and Canada before the qualifying tournament starts next Friday against Scotland, before further group matches follow against Denmark (November 16), Holland (17th), Afghanistan (20th), Kenya (21st), Nepal (23rd) and Papua New Guinea (24th).