An increased number of local players have registered for the third edition of the Bermuda Smash Invitational, with 54 having declared their interest in being included in the player draft at Bailey’s Bay Cricket Club next Saturday.

In addition to the 54, 16 domestic players have been kept by the four teams for the tournament taking place at North Field, National Sports Centre, from May 30 to June 6.

Alex Dore, Sinclair Smith, Derrick Brangman and captain Terryn Fray have been retained by two-times in a row champions, Hamilton Parish Hurricanes.

Sandys Spartans, the finalists last year, have kept team leader Kamau Leverock, Delray Rawlins, Alje Richardson and Isaiah O’Brien.

Smiths Sixers have kept captain Onias Bascome, Malachi Jones, Macai Simmons and Zeri Tomlinson.

For Pembroke Panthers, the players staying put are Dominic Sabir, Charles Trott, Zeko Burgess and Jermal Proctor.

Commenting after the window for players to show interest closed on Wednesday, Shane Hollis, one of the BSI directors, noted the expansion in numbers for both local and international players.

“There has been an increase in the number of registered local players for the player pool,” Hollis told The Royal Gazette.

“But not only the local players, interest from the international players has grown substantially as well.

“It’s definitely moving in the right direction, we’re creating more of a buzz each year and we’re looking forward to 2026.

According to Hollis, the organisers have refined the process of selecting players.

“We’ve decided to make a couple of tweaks this year,” he said.

“It’s going to be pretty similar to what we've been doing the last two years, but with some enhancements.

“We want to kind of spruce it up a bit. So right now, the major change would be the international player pool, where teams can now select from a pool, but must fulfil three tiers; A, B, and C.

“This is done at the same time that they will pick their first round of local players. So they must fulfil overseas players in the A, B, and C tiers, as well as three A positions and two B positions for local players.

“Once that round concludes, we move on to the wild card round. So all the tier A players that weren’t selected in that round will now drop down as tier B players, then the pot will be open to any player for selection within the two wild card rounds.

“Once that’s completed, each team should have a full roster, then they are allotted two local, mutually beneficial local trades and one overseas trade, if they so wish.

“This year’s draft will still continue to follow the snake draft, which seeks to balance team strength. We also just find that to be the most consistent and equal form of draft in a team, so we’re going to stick with that.

“In the national player pool, there are only four tier A players, so all of them will be involved with BSI 2026. It’s just a matter of which team they’ll be selected to.

“In tiers B and C, there’s only four allotted positions per tier, so not all those players will be selected.

“Each team will have two minutes to select their pick, once that’s done, the next pick will happen. By the end of the night, all teams should have their full roster.”