Bowling all-rounder Odean Smith will be heading to the island next month as the No 1 pick in the Bermuda Smash Invitational draft.

The Jamaican was the first name called at the draft ceremony at CedarBridge Academy last night and he will play in the tournament for inaugural champions Hamilton Parish Hurricanes.

Smith, a fast bowler who hits at a high strike rate in the middle to lower order, has played in nine one-day internationals and 27 T20 internationals for West Indies. He joins Australian batter Josh Brown in the Hurricanes squad under captain Terryn Fray. The Hurricanes retained Derrick Brangman, wicketkeeper Sinclair Smith, Alex Dore and George O’Brien from last year’s winning squad.

Pembroke Panthers added to a top batting line-up by taking 21-year-old New Zealander Jamal Todd with the second pick.

Captain Dominic Sabir will hope that Todd supplements big-hitting US batter Aaron Jones, who was their pre-draft pick, and national squad openers Tre Manders and Marcus Scotland. They also retained Jermal Proctor and Zeko Burgess from last year’s team.

With the third pick, Sandys Spartans chose Gerhard Erasmus, who captained Namibia at the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup. He was also named Associate Cricketer of the Year by the ICC in 2023 after scoring 956 ODI runs at an average of 56.23 and scoring a century in both ODI and T20I formats.

Sandys will be hoping that Erasmus will form a prolific top order alongside captain Kamau Leverock and Delray Rawlins, who is recovering from an injury picked up while on international duty with Bermuda last month. Alje Richardson, Steven Bremar Jr and Sharye Tavares were retained by the team from last year.

The first Bermudian and the first bowler picked in the draft was left-arm spinner Kevon Fubler, chosen at No 4 by Smith’s Sixers.

Fubler, who has recently made the move domestically to St David’s from Willow Cuts via St George’s, will team up with his new clubmate Onias Bascome, who captains Smith’s and chose West Indies all-rounder Raymon Reifer as his pre-draft pick.

The team retained Malachi Jones, Macai Simmons, Allan Douglas Jr and Jonté Smith.