St. George's Cricket Club have been left "stunned, dumbfounded, baffled and surprised" by Clay Smith's post Cup Match comments.

The top batsman claimed in last week's Royal Gazette that his side did not prepare properly for the mid-summer classic.

Smith indicated that St. George's were not ready to take the cup from St. George's in the drawn fixture and that many of their players were just going through the motions during the two days.

"We didn't break the game down enough to come up with a game-plan as to how we wanted to attack Somerset," stated Smith. "At the end of the day a lot of bowlers were out there bowling just to bowl, without a plan. We suffered the consequences."

But Lewis Foggo, chairman of the St. George's Selection Committee, said that he was upset by the remarks from the star batsman who slammed a century on the second day during the east enders' first innings.

Foggo made it clear that he and the bulk of the club executive, including the selection committee, took strong exception to the comments and felt that the player was totally out of order for going public with what he believed were totally unjustified views.

"Let's get one thing straight, I have all the respect for Clay Smith as a cricketer, he is a good player and a good captain but I was stunned, dumbfounded, baffled and surprised when I read his comments about our preparation and lack of training for Cup Match," said the chairman.

"What really disturbs me is that he was one of the players who only came to our training sessions on one occasion, so how can he question anybody about a lack of training?

"We started training in June for Cup Match, we trained every Wednesday and I guess we had around ten sessions altogether.

"Clay Smith trained only once and that was the week before Cup Match and then only once after the team was picked, so who is he to offer any criticism over our training and preparations?"

Smith was also criticised for his views on team meetings, Foggo pointing out that as a former skipper of the Cup Match team and one who the players respected, Smith should have come out and volunteered advice.

According to Foggo, that's what meetings are for.

"He said we didn't have a plan and didn't go in-depth in regards to tactics, but a team meeting is such that everybody participates," he said. "If you are in a meeting and discussing what's to be done and if you are not hearing the type of things that you want to hear then you have to take the initiative and bring your opinions to the table. Don't come after the fact, what does that say about him being part of the team?" asked Foggo.

"As a former Cup match skipper, everybody would have welcomed his comments about what was being said or what wasn't said. His views certainly would have been respected by everybody and to be honest I was left very surprised with his reaction to all of this."

The chairman felt St.George's had picked a team capable of grabbing the glory but on the day it didn't happen.

"I'll say this here, we picked a team based on how we felt our wicket would be playing. Once we picked it we felt it was a winning team," he said.

With Charlie Marshall making it public that he intended to give up the captaincy of the St. George's Cup Match team Foggo was asked what plans did they have to replace him, and whether Smith would be among the contenders despite being player-coach of St. David's Cricket Club.

"All I can say at this stage is that we will deal with that when it comes," he said.

"Although Charlie said that, we have a couple of players in mind . . . If Clay is one of the people, I'll just leave it like this, we have players in mind," remarked Foggo.