No friendships or favours will cloud Clay Smith?s judgement in selecting a final 14 for Bermuda?s ICC Trophy team.

As the May 14 deadline looms large for more than 25 cricketers hoping to make the trip to Ireland, the Island?s skipper has declared that his deliberations will be based on one clinical criterion ? who is best for Bermuda.

?I?ve sat down for months now and picked several different teams. I have a nucleus of players that I feel the team needs to be built around. There are still obviously some spots up for grabs and it will depend on how players produce over the next couple of weeks,? he said candidly.

?I?ve never been a person to pick a team on names or on friendships. When it comes to winning, to me it?s all about picking the best. Whether you play for my club or some other club ? that doesn?t matter.

?It?s about picking the best team for Bermuda. It?s going to boil down to players who can produce the goods.?

The dilemma which Smith and fellow selectors are likely to endure was hammered home during the recent training camp in Trinidad where Bermuda won only the first of their four matches and did not perform as well as expected.

It revealed how much preparation remains to be done if the Island is to be successful in its quest to qualify for the 2007 Cricket World Cup by placing in the top five of the 12 Ireland-bound countries.

?The tour really opened my eyes and made me realise that we still have a lot of work to do. I can see the positives but I know that to reach our goal we still have a long way to go in all aspects ? batting, bowling and fielding.

?I think that once we select the final 14 that?s when things are really going to take off because players will know that they are going and they will be willing to put in even greater effort and commitment to the job.

?This is a very critical stage. We the selectors are looking to pick the team very soon so we can focus on just the final 14 and really get them up to the level where we should be.?

Regarding Bermuda?s matches in Trinidad, the 34-year-old noted ?we played in spurts?.

?We would do one part of the game really well and struggle in the other. We either batted well and then bowled badly or we bowled well and batted badly. We never really put a complete game together probably with the exception of the match that we won.

?Overall I thought our fielding was a bit disappointing considering that we put so much emphasis on our fielding prior to going on tour.

?We definitely still have a lot of work to do. The team has a lot to improve on. Mind you, some of our key players were missing and, with players like Albert (Steede) and Saleem (Mukuddem) coming in, they can definitely add strength to the team.?

While he praised the contributions of bowlers Kevin Hurdle, Dwayne (Sluggo) Leverock and Richard Basden, Smith expressed worry about the batting.

?The part that concerned me was that we didn?t get too many big scores down there. Players got starts but never really carried on and maybe you can put that down to it being our off season and not many guys have had match practice.

?This was basically our first knock of the season and it was to be somewhat expected. Over the next couple weeks, the intention is to have some practice games before our final selection and those games are going to be critical for some players.?

Despite mediocre on-field returns, the St. David?s player hailed the ten-day trip a ?big success? in terms of his men getting exposure to ?some quality opposition? and bonding and becoming more unified. The Bermudian veteran was extremely impressed by the indoor nets at Queen?s Park Oval which allowed the visiting squad to practise well into the night.

On a personal note, Smith was disappointed not to be more involved out in the middle. The heavy-scoring, middle-order batsman was sidelined for three matches after being injured in the opening fixture versus a Northern Select XI.

?I was fielding at short cover and a guy hit a full-blooded cover drive and I tried to get my body behind it and the ball struck me on the lower part of my knee,? explained Smith.

As fate would have it, the blow was to his right knee and not his left one which has troubled him repeatedly and necessitated multiple surgeries.

?It was badly bruised to the point that the next day I was hobbling around. All I could do was just rest it. I tried to make the last game but we decided it didn?t make sense playing injured when the big prize is still ahead of us.

?It was disappointing because I always relish playing against higher opposition ? not just from a personal standpoint but from a team perspective as the leader.

?It didn?t allow me much time to work with players in terms of dealing with field placings and getting to understand what some players react to in different situations under my captaincy.

?On the other hand, it allowed me to sit down and analyse the team from the outside ? seeing the faults and the strengths and noting what areas we need to focus on.?

The tour also afforded Smith his first glimpse of new national coach Gus Logie in action and, by all accounts, the two hit it off immediately.

?I think we have the right man in charge to get the job done. My relationship with the coach is great. My first impression was that he is exceptional. He came into the camp and captured the team right from the start,? said Bermuda?s cricket leader.

?That was very important because a lot of players judge you by that first impression and he really got our attention from the first jump.

?Already he has done things from a One-Day perspective that even I hadn?t been exposed to. That has already set the standard and the players know they have a good coach behind them and they are willing to work for him.?