Clay Smith will wait to see if Janeiro Tucker feels he has a future with Bermuda cricket after shoulder surgery.

Either way Smith, the national coach, is confident there is an exciting nucleus of young players to build the team around in the next couple of years when they will make another attempt to gain promotion back into World Cricket League Division Three.

Tucker was a last-minute addition to the team after Terryn Fray fractured a finger while fielding in the first warm-up match against Canada just before the team’s departure. The injury was so close to the tournament that Fray ended up still travelling with the team, although in a non-playing capacity. It left the squad without the vice-captain and a recognised opening batsman.

“Janeiro really enjoyed himself,” Smith said of Cup Match’s greatest run-scorer, who will be 42 in March. “He made a good contribution with the bat and ball, and fielded really well. He really enjoyed being around the players. He’s due to get his operation in January and will play it by ear from there once he’s had the operation.

“As coach, I was very grateful to be able to pick him to replace Terryn, who I thought was extremely valuable to our team as vice-captain.

“For Janeiro to come in at such a late notice, I was very pleased that he did accept the invitation, knowing he was due to get the operation. We’re very grateful. He’s been around for years and we know his quality.

“Whether he would be able to come in and perform was never a question. Unfortunately, we were not able to qualify [for promotion], which would have been nice for him.”

The team recently returned from Los Angeles where they held on to their place in Division Four on net run-rate after losing their final match against Italy. Bermuda went into the match knowing they had a slim chance of promotion on net run-rate if United States lost to Jersey, which was the reason behind the decision to insert Italy after winning the toss in their final round-robin match.

Jersey did beat the US by one run in a nail-biter, but Bermuda struggled to chase down the 228 for eight posted by bottom team Italy and lost by 25 runs.

“Going into that game we made the decision that we wanted to field first so that we could control the net run-rate and know exactly how much we had to get,” Smith explained.

“All tournament we had been batting first, but it was a decision I made and we talked about it. I felt we had the batting to get whatever total we needed in a respectable timeframe. We had six lbws that day, which, in a one-day game is unheard of. But there’s no excuses. On the day, we tried to execute our game plan and it didn’t work.”

In the end Bermuda’s run-rate, which was boosted earlier against Jersey when they posted 312 for eight in 45 overs after an opening stand of 211 between Kamau Leverock, who made 137, and captain OJ Pitcher, with 63, was enough to keep them up as Jersey were relegated with Italy. Leverock’s 236 total runs was second-highest aggregate for the tournament.

“Kamau’s innings was one of the best I’ve seen in many years by a Bermuda batsman,” Smith said. “Controlled aggression at its best.”

Leverock and Cejay Outerbridge, two of the youngsters to come into their own during the tournament, represent a crop of players around whom Bermuda can build going forward. There are still players such as Pitcher, Fray, Delray Rawlins, Tre Manders, Greg Maybury, Dion Stovell, Steven Bremar and Jordan DeSilva to form the nucleus of the team.

Smith praised Pitcher and Outerbridge, the team’s top bowler with 11 wickets, for their batting late in the innings against Italy when Pitcher was 32 not out and No 11 Outerbridge finished with 21 not out in a last-wicket stand of 35 that spanned 8.1 overs.

“Those two stood together for about ten overs, which may have been the difference between us staying up and getting relegated,” Smith said.

“Young Cejay played over and beyond our expectations of him. He bowled tremendously well and even with the bat, he showed he wasn’t a slouch.

“He held his own and was very responsible. Being his first tour, he did extremely well.”

Smith is looking forward to building the team around committed, young players. “You still have Christian Burgess, who you can add to the team along with Stefan Kelly,” the coach said. “Hopefully, we can get Okera Bascome on board. He’s another young player who has a lot of quality.

“It’s definitely a good nucleus of players to build the team around for the next three to five years. If you look at that group, there was little to separate the teams.

“On any given day, anybody could beat anybody. Italy just about lost to USA, Denmark beat USA and we beat Denmark.

“Unfortunately, we just didn’t perform well on the one day that we really, really needed to. It would have been interesting to see how it could have been if our batting had been up to par like it had been prior to the Italy game. We could be sitting here having been promoted.

“It’s a young team and we have time to grow. By the time we hit the next tournament in two years’ time, we should be ready to stake a claim for promotion.

“We started the tournament with a massive 69 per cent dot balls against USA, but we recorded a low of 50 per cent dot balls against Jersey, which is the lowest amount of dot balls I can recall any Bermuda team having.

“This is an area of the game that we have worked extremely hard on improving and this shows that slowly, but surely we are moving in the right direction.”