Top Bermuda batsman Clay Smith believes the national cricket squad can still put up a good show at this month's Americas Cup tournament in Argentina despite the absence of so many key players.

Smith, Glenn Blakeney, Albert Steede and Janeiro Tucker, all considered among Bermuda's leading bats, will be missing when the squad head down to South America tomorrow.

But the St. David's coach and skipper says he has every confidence in veteran skipper Charlie Marshall and his 13 charges.

Smith, who was favoured to be given the captaincy himself before citing work commitments as reason for pulling out, believes the squad is much better than many believe. And he thinks they could cause an upset against World Cup qualifiers Canada and USA, both of whom fared better than Bermuda at last summer's ICC Trophy.

"Don't rule Bermuda out completely," said Smith. "Canada and the United States are obviously going to be the top two teams going into the tournament, but from what I have been reading off the Internet they both will be missing some key players, which means that Bermuda could pull off a few surprises.

"On any given day a team could rise to the occasion. If Bermuda play to their full potential who knows, they may be able to pull off an upset against one of these two sides. I think the important thing is that they go down to Argentina and show some national pride by striving to play at the highest possible level from start to finish."

The general consensus has been that Bermuda could be on a hiding to nothing as they enter the event with limited training and without several of their most experienced players.

But Smith says he would prefer to zero in on the team's strengths rather than their weaknesses. "Unlike many locals I do feel that there is some hope because they have a very strong bowling line-up," said Smith.

"There is a good foursome . . . the pace of Wendell White and Herbie Bascome and the two spinners, Hasan Durham and Dwayne Leverock. I think with those four supported by Dennis Archer and the two all-rounders there is still some potential that they can come away with possibly three wins out of the five games they will play.

"We can't be negative about anything at this stage, we have to throw our full support behind the squad. I am one of their biggest supporters. The whole of Bermuda has to remember that it's been a tremendous burden for the selectors to come up with a competent group of players for this tournament."