The Six Gun Grill Garden Route Badgers will kick off their season when they will travel to East London this weekend for the Pool A knock-out stage of Division 2 Twenty20 competition. The matches will be hosted at Buffalo Park.
The Badgers (previously known as SWD) will start their campaign under a new brand name, new head coach, and new captain. This tournament will be a debut for newly appointed head coach Piet Botha while Onke Nyaku will take over the captaincy from Jean du Plessis who recently underwent an ankle ligament construction operation. The 28-year Nyaku made his first-class debut in 2014 and went on to play 45 First class-, 56 List A- and 47 T20 matches for Eastern Province, the Warriors, Cobras, and SWD. Du Plessis hopes to return to action in January 2023.
In the squad of fourteen for the Badgers the experienced bowler Basheer Walters, opening batsman Matthew Christensen and left arm-seamer from the Titans, Jarred Jardine, will debut for the Garden Route-based team.
The Badgers played the Paarl Rocks in a series of warm-up matches the past weekend and the coach, Piet Botha, will take a lot of confidence out of these matches. “I am satisfied and excited about the new season after the weekend”, he said. “It is however now for the players to produce the desired results”, he concluded.
The top two teams in each of the two pools will advance to the semi-finals which will be played on 8 October 2022. The Badgers’ fixtures for the weekend are:
- vs Limpopo Impala: Friday 30 September 2022
- vs Northern Cape Heat: Saturday 1 October 2022
- vs Eastern Cape Inyathi: Sunday 2 October 2022
The Garden Route Badgers squad is: André Malan (Captain), Blayde Capell, Matthew Christensen, Onke Nyaku, Jhedli van Briesies, Hanno Kotze, Tyrece Karelse, Sean Whitehead, Herschel America, Pheko Moletsane, Jarred Jardine, Basheer Walters, Sintu Majiza, Marcello Piedt. The coaching team is: Piet Botha (Head Coach), Gurshwin Rabie (Assistant Coach), Tyler Easton (Strength-and-Conditioning Coach) and Arishna Maghoo (Physiotherapist)
Piet Botha (Head Coach)