Assistant national cricket coach Clay Smith has written a scathing reply to those who have criticised the side's performance at the recent World Cup Qualifiers in South Africa where the team failed to advance from the group stages.

In his weekly column in The Royal Gazette, the former national team and Cup Match skipper says the odds were always stacked against Bermuda, claiming the world's governing body, the ICC, had been biased in the way the qualifying tournament had been set up.

"It seems as if the entire cricket world was looking for us to fail to qualify, well you got your wishes and still you continue to criticise," he wrote.

". . . The reality is that ever since little old Bermuda, which is merely 22-square miles, qualified for Cricket World Cup, the ICC and Cricinfo have been awaiting our demise.

"What was the motive behind the new changes to the tournament? In my opinion the new system was set up to make sure that we as a small country did not qualify again."

Smith also points out that while David Hemp topped the batting average for the entire tournament, he wasn't the only player who excelled, noting that Stephen Outebridge, Glen Blakeney, Rodney Trott and Dwayne Leverock played important roles,

"David Hemp did a tremendous job for Bermuda . . . even though he received three MVP awards I can guarantee you that he would trade any two of his centuries if he could have batted well against UAE and Afghanistan. If Bermuda were going to qualify we had to beat either UAE or Afghanistan and those are the two games that David Hemp failed to score any runs."

See Clay Smith's full column, Page 21