Demands for answers after relegation to the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division Four are not just being made in Bermuda, with the United States Cricket Association (USACA) also feeling the heat after poor performances in Malaysia.

The US entered the competition with high expectations but were relegated along with Bermuda after failing to record a win after their opening day success against Allan Douglas’s side.

In an article on the ESPN Cricinfo website, it was suggested that the US’s relegation was more than a year in the making, citing key factors like poor preparation, selection policies, injuries and the cancellation of a pre-tournament trip to Jamaica and instead hosting a Twenty20 tournament to prepare for the 50-over competition.

Rain affected more than half the scheduled matches in the USACA T20 National Championship in Florida, with the tournament’s MVP, Nisarg Patel, missing out on the 14-man squad.

Several players who did not show up for the Championship were selected instead, including, according to sources in Malaysia, three players who arrived with pre-existing injuries. It has been claimed that the US team travelled with about ten fit players.

Questions are also being asked over the appointment of Robin Singh, the former India all-rounder, as coach in place of Clayton Lambert, a former West Indies Test player who played for the US in the 2005 World Cup qualifying tournament in Ireland. After the US were relegated from Division Three in January 2011, Singh replaced Lambert with the explanation that Lambert had done well to take the US from Division Five up to Division Three, but that someone with an elite coaching pedigree was needed to carry the team into Division One.

However, results have not improved under Singh’s tenure. Singh was also an integral part of the Mumbai Indians staff during their Indian Premier League and Champions League T20 titles, coached Uva Next when they won the Sri Lanka Premier League in 2012 and, most recently, coached Barbados Tridents during their Caribbean Premier League championship win in August.

His busy schedule means that the US team is not necessarily a priority for him.

As with Bermuda’s more experienced players, questions are now being asked about captain Steve Massiah’s future at international level.

Aditya Thyagarajan, Sushil Nadkarni and the US’s leading wicket-taker at the tournament, Usman Shuja, are also 35 or older.