Somerset and St George’s Cup Match teams will be picked next month after both teams have held several trial matches.

How significant are the trials and do they all carry the same weight or is the last trial match the main focal point for the selectors?

Will Cup Match ever see the best players playing or will politics always have a place when it comes to selecting teams?

Having been a former Cup Match captain and selector for St George’s, I can tell you that having numerous Cup Match trials are good, but everybody knows that the final trial is the main one.

All the other trials hold very little weight compared with the final trial. Somerset are a very different club from St George’s when it comes to selecting a Cup Match team. For year’s St George’s had a very strong league team and half the Cup Match side would come from those players, but those days are well behind us.

Somerset, on the other hand, never really had many league players to choose from so they managed to avoid the politics to some extent.

Many people used to accuse St George’s of choosing too many St George’s players, but back then the club were league champions, Camel Cup champions and we trained very hard with a very strong work ethic, which is the recipe for success.

St George’s league team is not that strong anymore, but St David’s team is.

St David’s could easily have at least five players in this year’s Cup Match team, providing they keep performing well and training hard.

So what do selectors look for when selecting a team? First of all, a lot of thought must go into the planning process. I don’t know how it is now, but I can only speak from my time as coach and say that we used to get the selectors together prior to Cup Match trials to have some sort of idea of what type of team balance we were looking for.

Were we looking to take five batsmen, a wicketkeeper, two spin bowlers and three fast bowlers or three spin bowlers and two fast bowlers?

If you are the cup holders, you are more likely to take an extra batsman to give you batting depth, making it harder for the opposition to wrestle the cup away from you.

There are also factors that determine your team selection, such as the wicket, the opposition’s batting line-up, injuries, fitness, and team unity.

For example, with St George’s playing in Somerset this year they should be looking to take a minimum of three spinners, as the wicket in Somerset spins a lot. Does each player’s season stats matter at all? Some selectors revert to them, while others don’t, but they are good to have in case you are debating between two players.

One philosophy I always had as a coach and selector was, pick yourself. Don’t leave it up to the selectors to pick you. However, in some cases that’s not even the case.

I have seen previously where one player had the second best batting average in Bermuda leading up to Cup Match, but was not selected. Another time, a player scored three half-centuries in the three trial matches and was still left out of Cup Match. These are the politics that have prevented Cup Match spectators from seeing the best players on show for years and years, but hopefully all that’s behind us.

It’s no secret that politics have existed at both Somerset and St George’s, but under the present regime at St George’s I would like to think they have a different trend of thinking.

The selection committee that St George’s have in place consists of all former players with a wide range of knowledge and experience.

Charlie Marshall is the chairman of St George’s and who better to fill this position.

He has been there and knows what it takes to win Cup Match. If he can pass on his winning mentality to the players, regardless of who is picked, St George’s will have a chance of winning this year.

Bermuda wants to see the best players playing, not because they are from St George’s or from St David’s, but because they want to see good, entertaining cricket.

Yes, there’s always going to be one or two left out, but hopefully not because of politics. Remember, Cup Match belongs to the people of Bermuda.

Quote of the week: The team that is going to win is the one that does its homework the best by studying its opponents — Imran Khan