Herbie Bascome last night confirmed that he had stepped down as captain of the St. George's cricket team, but will continue with the club as a player for the upcoming season.

Citing a need to fully commit to Bermuda's preparation for the upcoming ICC Trophy tournament in Canada, Bascome said that he could not adequately fulfil responsibilities as club captain while also a member of the squad.

The Island's leading fast bowler also shot down assertions that he would be moving across the harbour to tag on with St. David's, a team he has played with in the Eastern Counties Cup Competition.

"I'm going to be staying at St. George's,'' said Bascome, who tied for the league lead in wickets taken with Hassan Durham at 46 last season. "There was a gesture (made), but nothing really. All I've done is just to step down from being captain, that's all. I just want to play and enjoy it a little bit.

"The ICC has a lot to do with it as well, because St. George's are the type of team that has guys in need of a lot of attention, they need their skipper to be with them.

"It came up a bit last year, and this year, with me being involved in the ICC, it will mean a lot of time taken out for training through the week which will conflict with the scheduled times for St. George's' sessions. So, it would be somewhat hectic for me to try to fully commit to training with the squad, plus put in the time and commitment it takes to be captain of St.

George's, which is the main reason I stepped down.

"Outside of that I would still look to be skipper, unless the club wanted to make another decision.'' Bascome came in for a bit of `stick' from his home crowd during last summer's Cup Match Classic, which St. George's lost by six wickets to Somerset.

East enders openly criticised the captain for his tactics, particularly during the second innings, when he and Greg Foggo bowled virtually unchanged while defending just over 100 runs.

However, Bascome again defended his decision and emphasised that such comments regarding the moves he did or did not make played no part then, nor had they in his move to step down.

"With the Cup Match situation we had 100-odd runs to defend and me and Greg Foggo as the two prime bowlers,'' said Bascome."We obviously had our feet in the sand, and I said to myself that if me and Greg could run through them and get us a good start then we could try things.

"As it turned out Greg got a little tired, and things got out of our reach, if not we might have been able to go a little longer and make something happen. But I didn't feel I did anything wrong.

"I mean, in the first innings we tried everybody and nothing came out of it, 14 wickets were taken and between me and Gregg we got 13, only one other player took a wicket. I caught some flak from it, but if we hadn't bowled the game have been over even earlier.

"I've always felt okay with occupying the captain's role and handled the prestige that comes with being captain of a Cup Match club like St. George's.

"It was just that I find that, in terms of being a player and being a skipper, I like more being a player.'' As for the upcoming season Bascome is raring and ready to go, with goals of exceeding the numbers recorded a season ago, with the good news for St.

George's being that it will be in the true blue colours.