Bermuda are facing the sobering reality of dropping into Division Four of the World Cricket League barring a miracle in the last round of matches today.

Bermuda need to beat second-place Uganda and substantially increase their net run-rate while also hoping the other results go their way, with Singapore beating the United States and leaders Nepal defeating Malaysia.

Allan Douglas, the team’s coach, admitted that Bermuda should brace themselves for the worst and start preparing for life in the lower tier..

“We’re probably going down,” said Douglas, who replaced Arnold Manders as coach because of illness. It’s going to be very tough for us to prevent relegation but we will have to see how tomorrow goes. We’ve got to get through the tomorrow’s game and hopefully end on a high note.”

Douglas said that a long-term plan was needed to move Bermuda cricket forward.

“If we go down we will have to regroup, set ourselves targets, and see where we want to take our cricket,” said Douglas, the chairman of the Bermuda Cricket Board coaching committee.

“It’s disappointing but we would have to use relegation as an opportunity to get some young players in and start afresh. I think we would probably need to give ourselves six years to get ourselves up into Division Two.”

The Division Four tournament will almost certainly signal the end of the international careers of Janeiro Tucker, Lionel Cann and Del Hollis — three players near or past the age of 40.

Worryingly, lack of desire of some players to represent their country has meant that Bermuda are seldom at full strength for tournaments, particularly overseas.

“We didn’t have a big pool of players to choose from and that’s been a challenge,” said Douglas, whose nephew Chris Douglas saved Bermuda from relegation at the 2013 tournament, with a match-winning knock of 89 against the United States at the National Sports Centre.

“Hopefully we can develop a pool of players who want to play for Bermuda,” he said.

“Listening to the players talk there is a lot going on in Bermuda cricket that I will take back to the Board,” Douglas added.

“Eventually we need to make a statement on what’s going on with our cricket. To me, some of it could be ‘come on guys, give me a better reason than that’, but that’s their reality and I have to respect that.”