"serious decline'' and would continue on that route unless a concerted attempt was made to get it back on track.

Back home from a stint as player-coach of Buckhurst Cricket Club in England's Essex Colour Assembly League, Gibbons was responding to comments made by Clarence Parfitt about local cricket having made little improvement in the last six years.

However, while agreeing with the Scotland-based coach on some issues, Gibbons said that Parfitt had been overly critical.

And the 39-year-old Bailey's Bay player even gave his support to Bermuda Cricket Board of Control president Ed Bailey, claiming he was doing a "very creditable job'' but was surrounded by "incompetent'' officers.

"I am really concerned about cricket here in Bermuda, it's been in serious decline for a while now and we have to find a solution to stop the slide right away,'' said Gibbons.

"Parfitt was too critical. There are areas in which criticism of the sport is justified, but at this time we need to come up with solutions more than anything else.'' Gibbons felt that among the cricket board's immediate plans to restore interest in the sport should be the employment of a foreign national coach, a relaunching of the Shell Youth League and the formation of a well-run cricket programme in primary schools.

The failure to take these steps in recent years had led to the humiliation of the Bermuda team at the International Youth competition in Holland earlier this year when they lost all six matches. Gibbons said he considered their performance as "embarrassing.'' "I don't think we should have even sent a team there. We knew the standard of the players in the squad was not nearly as high as teams of previous years and it was no secret that the team would not be competitive.

"I am not taking anything from coach George Rock who has helped me a lot, but the young players of today need more coaching than what he was able to offer in a short term,'' added Gibbons.

"We need quality people at the top, Ed Bailey can only do so much without capable people around him. We also definitely need a foreign coach, preferably one from the West Indies because our style of play is a carbon copy of theirs.

"Heaven only knows what happened to ruin the Shell competition but it must be restored and it's essential to have a cricket league in the schools.

"When we lost Shell that was the worst thing for our cricket.'' The structure of senior league play next season needed to be changed, said Gibbons, with the current open format combined with a reintroduction of a Super Eight league.

Gibbons said that few countries used the open format any longer and noted that while he realised it allowed the weaker teams to have the opportunity to play against the elite players and stronger clubs it also prevented the development of better players.

"But there still must be an allowance made for the weaker clubs not in the Super Eight to play against the better players and therefore there should be a knockout competition that has everybody involved,'' he said.

With coaching among his future plans, Gibbons conceded that it was sad how Bermuda continued to misuse senior players who had coaching certificates, citing as examples himself, Allan Douglas, Arnold Manders and Wendell Smith.

He revealed that he had personally talked with Sports Ministers and Shadow Sports Ministers over the years about the prospects of having players such as those mentioned heavily involved in programmes at schools but nothing positive had ever happened.

Senior players continued to be discarded too quickly when it came to national commitment and Gibbons strongly felt that Douglas, Manders, Smith and himself were still deserving of being included for ICC tournament play in two years' time.

"Nolan Clarke is still playing for Holland at 45, but in Bermuda we overlook senior players too early. As far as I am concerned the four of us have more to offer than many of the younger players,'' he said.

"A team selection should be made on merit and nothing else. What's the purpose of taking all young players with ordinary talent simply because they are young. Experience is essential when it comes to playing against international teams under circumstances entirely new and we four players have lot to offer at this level.''