While most in Bermuda must be fed up reading about Bermuda's cricket woes, they might soon be put out of their misery.There'll be nothing more to write about that hasn't already been written.As of this time next week, our so-called national sport which has spiralled from bad to worse in recent years may have reached its nadir.Internationally it will have been tossed into the wilderness.An over-staffed Bermuda Cricket Board could lose some of its key players, including the recently appointed national coach.Those are some of the consequences should the current players in Dubai capitulate against the likes of cricket's tadpoles, Hong Kong and Papua New Guinea.Defeat against those teams, as well as Namibia, United Arab Emirates and Uganda in the World League Division Two qualifiers, and finish in the bottom two of a six-team group, then Bermuda will plunge into Division Three the lowest rung of international cricket.And that means no more funding from the governing body, the International Cricket Council roughly $400,000 which have essentially paid for the national team's overseas jollies for the past four or five years.Combined with a slash in the annual grant provided by Government, Bermuda Cricket Board could be brought to its knees.With little left in the kitty, it's difficult to see how the BCB could keep executive director Neil Speight and Australian coach David Moore, appointed just a few months ago, on the payroll.That's a possible even if it seems an unlikely scenario.Despite the players' inability or unwillingless to stick to a game plan laid out by the coach in a warm-up game earlier this week (it was similar when the old guard couldn't follow previous coach Gus Logie's instructions), they should be able to muster up enough quality to despatch Papua, Kong and company.But who knows? Given some of their previous performances, they could still find another way to contrive defeat.The stakes shouldn't be high but because of the hole the national team have dug themselves into in the past couple of years, they are.Their inability to remain in Division One of the World League, following the 2007 World Cup, cost Bermuda International One-Day status a level which allowed them to take on the strongest of Associate teams on a regular basis, kept the cash flowing in and allowed the boys in blue and red to continue their globetrotting.Even Division Two has provided the privilege, thanks to the ICC's seemingly bottomless pit, to travel abroad to play friendlies and continue their rip-roaring successful development programme, which the ICC, for the last four years, have deemed best in the region.Farcical as that might seem, it makes sense in that our closest rivals, Canada and US, fill their teams with players from the sub-continent, particularly India and Pakistan, and from the West Indies.They don't require a development programme as they simply rely on their adopted citizens to fly the national flag, knowing that the average American or Canadian wouldn't know the difference between a beach ball and a cricket ball.It's much like the UAE's programme, which relies on the daily flight from Lahore.Whatever we now have in Dubai are the products of our ‘highly successful' programme, who showed how much they have developed in this week's 100-run thrashing handed out by Namibia the same African country who have cantered to victory on the numerous occasions the teams have met in the last four or five years.To be fair, Namibia shouldn't be still playing in Division Two this week and will almost certainly top the group and be promoted to Division One where they belong.As for the rest, it could be something of a dogfight.If tradition and history were to be considered, this should prove to be a walk in the park for Bermuda.But we all know it won't be.If our top players can discover another way to lose, they'll undoubtedly find it.Hopefully, they won't.But if they do, they can tear up their passports right now.Cup Match and Eastern Counties will provide a far better standard than anything they'll find on the lowest level of international cricket . . . not that they'll have the funds to contemplate another jaunt overseas.ADRIAN ROBSON