Gus Logie strolled into Bermuda Cricket Board?s headquarters on Cedar Avenue having just returned from yet another lunch time session with his national squad.

With preparation for the upcoming tour to Dubai in full swing, the players have been forced to squeeze in a net whenever they can get time off work ? making Logie a hugely busy man as he rushes back and forth between his office and the National Sports Centre to accommodate their varied training needs.

He is close to half an hour late for our interview, but given the monumentally positive impact he has had on Bermudian cricket since he replaced Mark Harper over a year ago, I wasn?t about to complain.

After a handshake and smile, he ushered me into a cramped front room and plonked himself down in the nearest chair with a loud sigh, no doubt grateful for a couple hours off from feeding ball after ball into an increasingly over-worked bowling machine.

As with many West Indians, on first acquaintance Logie appears almost impossibly laid back and at ease with the world. He is entertaining and provocative company, with a laugh and a joke never very far away.

But as with anyone who has fought their way to the pinnacle of a profession, this amiable exterior masks a fierce and uncompromising determination to succeed ? especially when the odds are stacked against him. As Logie himself said: ?I absolutely love a challenge. That is what drives me. I think I am at my best when the situation is working against you and you have to produce something special.?

That special something came in the summer, when the 45-year old Trinidadian steered an unfancied Bermuda into the World Cup for the very first time. And with the ink now dry on a four-year coaching contract, Logie has signalled his ongoing and wholehearted commitment to the national cause ? a decision for which local cricket is enormously grateful.

Yet this gratitude works both ways.

When Logie first assumed the role, the belief he had always possessed in his coaching abilities had just been seriously dented following a turbulent year in charge of the West Indies, where the pain of generally poor results on the field was coupled with a less than harmonious relationship with then captain Brian Lara and his bosses on the West Indies Cricket Board.

Logie is the first to admit that he came to Bermuda to be reborn.

?The disappointment over what took place in the Caribbean fuelled my intentions of coming here,? he said.

?It was a very difficult time and I had lost confidence in myself and what I was doing. Bermuda gave me another chance to prove to people, but more importantly to myself, that my methods work and that my approach to the game is sound.

?It?s been a challenging year but I?ve really enjoyed it. By being in the World Cup, these are very exciting times and we?ve got a lot more money now to put in place the things we need to do to be successful.

?But as a coach there have been frustrations as well. It is well documented that I have not been dealing with professional players here who are able to eat, sleep and drink cricket, which obviously means there are limits to what you can achieve with them.

?But although it took a few months, the atmosphere in the squad is really positive. The camaraderie between the guys has got better and better and with a talented core group of players there, it augurs well for the future. Everything so far has exceeded even my wildest expectations.?

To understand what Logie is really all about, one must go back to the late 1960s and a little village in the south of Trinidad called Sobo.

It was in this tiny rural community, several hours drive from the capital Port of Spain, that Logie grew up and his natural sporting ability was first nurtured. As a child, Logie led an active, outdoors life, playing football or cricket in the streets with his friends until the fading light forced them to retreat inside. The last of ten children, Logie was sold on the idea of being a professional sportsman from a very early age.

?I played a lot of football as well and was pretty capable ? I had trials for the south region of Trinidad,? he said.

?But growing up in the late 1960s and early ?70s West Indian cricket was becoming extremely strong. I used to listen to the West Indies playing on the wireless. There was only one television in the village at Miss Charles? house and we all used to go round there as often as we could when the team was playing.

?The names on everybody?s lips were those of Clive Lloyd, Gary Sobers, Rohan Kanai and Lance Gibbs and I was so wrapped up in the game at that age that I felt as if I knew them all ? even though I had never seen them in the flesh.

?But living where I did, I was outdoors playing sport a lot and there weren?t too many other distractions like there are for young people today. Even my kids are not anywhere near as active as I was at a similar age. We used to have to walk miles to our school everyday which built up strength in your legs and one of the reasons I developed a reputation as an exceptional fielder later on is that I used to constantly pelt stones at mango trees and try to knock the mangoes off.?

Logie was thrust into adult club cricket at the tender age of 12 and came quickly to be regarded as a highly skilled offspinning allrounder. With the help and encouragement of one of his first and most inspirational coaches, William Guadaloupe, Logie?s batting soon blossomed and he was selected for the south region?s Under-16 team when only 13.

A debutant for the Trinidadian Under-19 team only three years later, Logie was confronted with the daunting prospect of facing a young and fiery Malcolm Marshall in St. Vincent ? an experience from which he emerged relatively unscathed and with his reputation enhanced.

?Marshall was a couple of years older than me and very quick,? he said.

?I think the selectors were looking to throw me in at the deep end and see if I could cope. I didn?t score a lot of runs in that game, but I stood up to Marshall and I think that was when people realised that I had the guts and the character to make it at a high level.?

Logie was a regular in the senior Trinidad side by the age of 19, and following a prolific first few seasons, made his West Indies debut against India at Sabina Park, Jamaica in early 1983.

The pundits? verdict on Logie?s 52-Test match and 158 One-Day International career is mixed. But with a Test match average of a shade under 36, most would agree that he was a solid performer, if not a spectacular one.

In his defence Logie points out that his emergence as a Test player coincided with a very strong West Indian batting line-up, containing the likes of Gordon Greenidge, Desmond Haynes, Viv Richards and even the under-rated Larry Gomes. As a result, he rarely found himself batting above six or seven in the order ? a position from where it was difficult to put together big scores on a consistent basis.

His golden moment, however, came in 1988 as a member of Richards? victorious touring side to England when he topped the averages with 374 runs at 74.80, including a Man of the Match performance in the Lord?s Test match with scores of 81 and 95 not out.

He has also never been on a losing side in a Test series ? an achievement of which he is more proud than any personal milestone.

?There are not too many Test players around who can say they never lost a Test series ? that?s an achievement I hold most dear from my career,? he said.

?But the ?80s were a difficult time to come into the West Indies side as a batsman. I was in and out of the side at number six or seven, I was either having to bat with the tail or go in and throw the bat. And unlike most of my peers, I never had the benefit of an extended period in England playing county cricket to develop my game even more.

?My father passed away when I was only nine years-old and I made the decision to spend more time at home with my mother. I don?t have any regrets about doing that whatsoever but I don?t think it helped my game.?

Logie retired from all cricket 10 years after his Test debut, before travelling to Australia to play club cricket, coach and also study business.

?That is where my real interest in coaching first started. When I had been a member of the West Indies side on overseas tours, I was usually the one asked or selected, shall we say, to go and do some coaching sessions with some local youngsters. I got a lot of satisfaction out of that. It gladdens the heart to see a young cricketer listening to you and putting into practice the help that you give them. I had only spent a couple of seasons in Australia when I was asked to come back to the West Indies as a national youth coach.?

Logie was a leading figure in West Indian youth coaching between 1995 and 2003 and is convinced that, despite a lot of scaremongering to the contrary, talent still abounds in the region.

?If you look at the results of West Indian under-19 teams over the last few years, they have been exceptional,? he argued.

?Our young players are just as good if not better than anywhere else in the world. The reason why West Indies cricket has been struggling for some time is that this early potential is not being properly developed after it leaves the youth ranks.?

After eight successful years back at home, he left to take charge of Canada at the 2003 World Cup in South Africa ? where they surprised a few people by beating Bangladesh in the opening round ? before becoming coach of the West Indies the year after.

Logie?s time in charge of the senior team was not an altogether happy one however.

There were occasional moments of glory ? such as the 2004 Champions Trophy triumph in England.

But in general he laboured in vain to get the best out of a disjointed and frequently lackadaisical group of players who most said lacked the ability and the will to make West Indies cricket great once again.

In contrast to the likes of England coach Duncan Fletcher or Australia?s John Buchanan, Logie claims he never had the full backing of the WICB and was constantly undermined by ?certain individuals? ? he scrupulously avoided mentioning Lara by name ? who operated to a different set of rules because of their high-profile status.

?All that has been said and written about me not having the respect of the players is just not true,? he said, clearly riled by many inches of newsprint devoted to this subject.

?About 90 percent of them had gone through me at youth level so there were no problems with them. But I inherited a situation in which it was very difficult to get the best out of the players and I was never given the support or licence to do things my way and work with the people I wanted to work with.

?The problem of certain individuals being held to a different set of standards to me and everybody else was a problem long before I came to be coach and there was very little I could do about it.?

Yet now in Bermuda, with those troubles behind him, he is a contented man ? backed by a Board which trusts his judgement and a group of players who admire him and respond to his counsel.

With Logie at the helm until 2009, next year?s World Cup promises to be only the start of something truly special.