Clay Smith, the former Bermuda captain, has lashed out over Jason Anderson’s apparent snub by the national team selectors.

Despite enjoying a productive season, the Cleveland County wicketkeeper-batsman was not invited to train with the national squad in preparation for the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division Three tournament that will be held this month in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

This has not gone down well with Smith, the Cleveland coach, who has taken issue with the decision to overlook Anderson while including players in the Bermuda squad whom he believes have either yet to establish themselves domestically or have neglected to represent the country in the past.

In his weekly column in this newspaper, Smith wrote: “Nowadays we have players who have yet to even establish themselves in the Premier Division walking into the national team. How does this happen?

“Jason is without a doubt the best wicketkeeper-batsman on the Island. If you ask anybody around cricket, they will tell you that Jason’s game has developed this year and he is scoring more freely now than ever before.

“What makes this situation so outrageous is that for years we have had several top players not attending or making themselves available to play for Bermuda, but Jason has always been a regular to training. However, he is omitted and some of them who haven’t been available for years are selected in the training squad before him. That is scandalous!

“How can one go from being a regular in the team to not even being selected in a training squad of 26? This reeks of politics, the same old politics that has ruined our sport for years.”

Anderson refuted national coach Arnold Manders’s claim last week that he was among those who failed to make themselves available for training for the WCL Division Three tournament. “You don’t really have the right to say that I didn’t make myself available because I wasn’t even in the 26 — and that’s what he [Manders] said on the news,” Anderson said.

The 35-year-old was a key man in Cleveland’s first-round upset of St David’s in the Eastern Counties Cup, scoring 76 on his debut as Cleveland ended a 33-year wait to win the trophy. He was also reinstated in the St George’s Cup Match team this summer.