Despite their obvious limitations, Bermuda have every right to play in the World Cup, legendary St.George’s Cup Match skipper Cal (Bummy) Symonds argued yesterday.

In response to recent criticism from former West Indies quickie Michael Holding who said having teams like Bermuda involved in the World Cup will ultimately “devalue” cricket’s premier showpiece, Symonds went on the counter-attack yesterday and rigorously defended the ICC’s decision to increase Associate Member involvement in the competition.

“When I listened to what Michael Holding said, I thought to myself that he shouldn’t be telling us that we don’t belong in the World Cup. We can’t help it if we qualified. The ICC allowed additional teams to qualify, and we qualified,” Symonds said.

In a somewhat twist of irony, Holding’s international cricket career took flight in Bermuda during the 1970s.

“I remember when Michael got his chance to play cricket for the West Indies. He came here on a tour with Jamaica and a little local fellow named Lee Raynor took a century off him,” Symonds recalled.

“Michael went back to Jamaica and later made the West Indies Test team. He’s a great bowler and I’m not taking anything from him. . . but you can’t just put our team down.”

Symonds, uncle of Bermuda skipper Irving Romaine, said it is time the Island rallied their full support behind its World Cup representatives.

“It’s important we support them at this time and hopefully if my health remains good I will be in Trinidad watching all of their games,” said Symonds, also one of the first Bermudians to play professional football in the UK with Rochdale.

Holding, however, now claims that his comments were misinterpreted.

“I was a bit disappointed when I saw the article on Cricinfo regarding my comments,” he said. “My opinion is that the ICC are devaluing the tournament by having so many teams involved that are not going to be competitive and that also includes Ireland, Scotland, Canada and the Netherlands — and not just Bermuda.

“And if you add Kenya, Bangladesh and struggling Zimbabwe you will see that the preliminary rounds of 24 games will probably end up with four games of significance.”

ICC Americas manager Martin Vieira also supports the decision made by world cricket’s governing body to include more Associate Members in the tournament.

“There are pros and cons as to whether all six Associates or just one or two should or shouldn’t compete. But I think we must remember that it’s a World Cup and not a Champions Trophy where just the elite go,” he said in a recent interview.

“In the World Cup you only have four groups of four with only the top two teams from each group advancing to the Super Eight. So it’s an excellent format . . . the so-called minnows will be eliminated if they are not good enough to beat the full member countries.

“And so there really shouldn’t be any concern about Associate members being in the World Cup.”