Wendell Smith has resigned as coach of St David’s, the Premier Division champions — something he publicly stated he would do two years ago.

The former St George’s Cup Match and Bermuda captain, 54, has stood down after four seasons, citing health and family commitments among his reasons for doing so.

“I wanted to take a break from cricket so that I could concentrate on a couple of other initiatives,” Smith, the West Pembroke Primary School deputy principal, said.

“One is my personal health, getting my health back to where I want it to be and two, I want to spend some time with my family, particularly my son who I want to take to an Ashes series in England next summer.

“The other reason is I’m looking forward to promoting a really positive summer day camp, which involves a variety of activities that I do with boys aged 8 to 12.

“I just want to play my part in helping the next generation of Bermuda youth to really have some positive life experiences.”

Asked whether the decision to resign was a difficult one, Smith said: “It wasn’t a hard decision; it was just something that I decided I needed to do at this time.

“There comes a point as a coach when it is time to step away and I’m leaving on a positive note.

“St David’s were very supportive of my programme and I thanked them in a letter. The one thing I most appreciated is that we had match-practice wickets every week and that helped make the programme top-quality.”

Smith coached St David’s to three Premier Division titles, the Eastern Counties Cup, two Lindo’s Twenty20 championships and the Belco Cup.

Dethroning Bailey’s Bay as Eastern Counties champions during the 2013 season proved to be Smith’s crowning moment. “They were coming off a season when they swept everybody the year before and we knocked them down for 89 runs,” he said. “It wasn’t so much the fact we won, it was the performance.”

Failing to win the Belco Cup more often proved to be one of the low points of Smith’s coaching stint with St David’s.

“It was a low point because twice we were in winning positions and failed to do so,” the former opening batsman said.

Smith has not ruled out coaching again in the future.

“I will leave the door open for that,” he said. “I will just have to wait and see how things develop with different teams because my love for cricket is always going to be there.”