This week’s column is all about the good, the bad and the ugly.First the good, MCC will be visiting our island to play against our top players.The bad, St. George’s have gone from title contenders to relegation bound.The ugly, five players were recently suspended but was justice really done? Regardless, cricket will wind down in the next two weeks with the hope of having a formal post mortem to assess the positives and the negatives with a view of improving the league for next year.MCC have confirmed a tour here in Bermuda, from September 25 to October 5. MCC is a group comprising of both first and second string cricketers primarily from England.Their focus and mission is to travel the world in an effort to promote cricket everywhere. While here on the Island the MCC will play against our local players, giving them some much needed experience.A tour like this allows us as a country to test the waters of some of our fringe players who are on the outside looking in. With approximately eight games scheduled, Bermuda will be able to select from a wide range of players.This will be a small test to see who is capable of playing at that next level. The true cricket fans of Bermuda will be treated with some quality cricket.The Cricket Board has also showed recognition to the World Cup squad of 2007 by bringing them from the dead to play against the MCC in what will be a celebration match of their achievements.Moving on to the bad, one month ago St. George’s were sitting just a few points behind St. David’s battling it out for first place. Now a month later they are staring relegation in the face.Where did it all go wrong? The absence of Dean Minors for a month made a tremendous impact on winning and losing games. Dean has been an integral part of St. George’s’ success this year with his dazzling batting displays.One would have thought things would have been different knowing that St. George’s actually had five out of their last seven games at home. However, their inability to win one game at home in the second half of the season has been their biggest letdown.Now with one week left, St. George’s are staring relegation in the face. The only good thing is that Dean Minors is back and scoring runs. Does he have one big score left in his arsenal, as St. George’s will need him to perform at his best if they stand any chance of beating St. David’s?St. George’s will have to win without the services of several first team players. Off to school are captain Oronde Bascome, Christian Burgess, Mishael Paynter and and Zeko Burgess. On top of that suspension to two other first team players in Detroy Smith and Macai Simmons has left St. George’s with a depleted squad.However, the club will be waiting anxiously to see if the Bermuda Cricket Board accept their appeals for Detroy Smith and Macai Simmons, which could possibly allow them to play against St. David’s.This brings me to the ugly! Last week five young cricketers were suspended for various reasons. Because two of them are St. George’s players I will refrain from elaborating too much on the facts, as I know appeals are pending.First and foremost let me be clear that if you do wrong you should expect to be punished. However, if you don’t do wrong you don’t expect to be punished either. Have the Cricket Board’s technical committee, who heard these cases, got them right or wrong?What really baffles me is that some five years’ ago there was talk about match referees. Here it is some five years later and five suspensions later we want to now put it into place.What a joke! Why don’t we have match referees? Is it because no one on the Cricket Board wants to do the job for free? If that is the case why not go out and seek sponsorship to pay people to get the job done? Oh I forgot marketing seems to be a major problem for cricket for some reason or other.These young men have been banned for an excessive amount of time. Was this fair justice or was this a political ploy?Condoning bad behaviour is certainly something that I do not support as I have learned the hard way myself. However, we should always remember to judge by facts and not hearsay.Hopefully when the appeal is heard, the facts of the cases will be heard by an impartial panel of people who have no interest in making themselves look good, but who are doing what is right in the best interest of the game. Right is right and wrong is wrong!Part of the problem with discipline is the lack of interaction with the Board, the players, and the umpires. The gap in that bridge is continuously widening. Umpires have a difficult time here in Bermuda because many players do not know the rules of the game resulting in controversy that has no backbone.However, for those players that do know the rules, it also is frustrating if and when the umpires ignore such rules or really are unsure of the rules themselves. Regardless of the scenario, cricket is still a gentlemen’s game and we should treat it as such.Bermuda, this has been a long cricket season and this weekend will be action packed, full of tension and drama. We will have new league champions and two teams will get relegated. Let’s all play our part and finish the season on a positive note.