Dear Sir,

I might be long gone, but Bermuda will always hold a place dear to my heart. By writing this letter I am doing what no other team-mate did for me . . . and that is stand up for a team-mate when they knew an injustice was being carried out.

Kevin old buddy, you are going to owe me one. I read with great sadness, but not surprise, that Kevin Hurdle was banned for a year from playing international cricket because he "cursed" at the team manager, a certain Mr. Lionel Tannock.

This is the same Mr. Tannock who I accused of being incompetent and a very poor manager during the World Cup (seems like a distant memory). I am not going to go into those details again because this is not about me.

I was accused by Mr. Tannock in front of all my teammates of undermining his position as manager. He did make it very easy, I have to admit because, in my opinion, he was useless as a manager (wait for my autobiography for the details).

I say this tos put something else in perspective. During my tenure with the Bermuda cricket team Kevin and Mr. Tannock were always at loggerheads.

Saying that they did not have mutual respect for each other was an understatement. Kevin was always "deemed" to be in the wrong and I guess Mr. Tannock and his buddies, or should I say his employers at the Bermuda Cricket Board, shared the same view.

I ask you, the reader, to compare the following instances of transgression by a member of the Bermuda cricket team. These examples are based on fact. Not opinion, not gesture, not second hand, but fact. Trust me on this one.

a) A player curses the team manager for smoking where he wants to instead of where the manager wants him to.

b) A player is caught on camera entertaining "hookers" (not rugby players) in his hotel room thus contravening an ICC code of conduct. Don't take my word for it. Ask the then-manager, the former Sports Minister.

c) A player runs off the field in an international match after being given out and before he reaches the clubhouse (in plain sight of everyone including the match referee) hurls his bat in the direction of the clubhouse and nearly hits the coach.

d) A player sits in a team meeting and admits to breaking curfew twice, not once but twice. A curfew which is supposed to be a very serious offence in the BCB's code of conduct. I guess admitting it made it ok.

e) A player refuses to listen to the support staff and does his own thing instead of following the instructions to do a post match recovery procedure.

Guess in which one of the above instances the player was banned for one year.

There is only one correct answer. In all the other cases the player did not even receive a "hearing".

Double standards? You be the judge.

At a time when Bermuda can ill afford to turn players away from the game, the BCB finds a way to shoot itself in the foot once again.

The more things change the more they stay the same.

To quote a phrase from the political struggle during the South African apartheid years . . . "An injury to one is an injury to all".

SALEEM MUKUDDEM

South Africa