HAMILTON, Bermuda (CMC) – Former national all-rounder Arnold Manders has been elected the new president of the Bermuda Cricket Board (BCB).

Manders, 61, was given the nod, by a vote of 8-5, at last Thursday’s annual general meeting, when he ended incumbent Lloyd Smith’s three-year term.

Manders knows he faces a huge task with Bermuda having plunged down the World rankings since qualifying for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 West Indies, but he feels he has much to offer as the new president.

“My wife thought I was crazy, but cricket has done a lot for me over the years,” he told the Royal Gazette newspaper.

“I travelled around the world, played against some of the greatest players in the game and I think this is my turn to try to put something in that is going to bring us back to where we were before.

“That’s what I say to my mates: ‘Don’t sit down and complain; come on board and let’s run with it’.”

Manders, a right-handed batsman and off-spinner, still plays in the island’s Evening Cricket League and has already served in a variety of positions.

He has been director of cricket, national coach, Bermuda captain, as well as Bermuda Under-19 coach, a position he says remains close to his heart.

He was both Under-19 coach and chief selector for the senior team, when Bermuda qualified in 2005 for CWC 2007 and ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup 2008 Malaysia.

He had spent this year thinking about running for president after winning a vote in January to become first vice-president, when the clubs’ backing for Smith sparked an exodus by almost the entire executive committee.

The walk-out was in protest at Smith’s decision to bring former West Indies Test captain Jimmy Adams, the current Cricket West Indies director of cricket, as a guest speaker against their wishes, when the cash-strapped board was struggling to stay afloat.But the clubs came to the rescue and voted against a motion to censure the president, who had replaced Lloyd Fray in November 2017.

Kellie Smith was elected the board’s first female first vice-president, stepping into the post that Manders left vacant.