South Western Districts Cricket, on Monday, revealed the final squad for the 2026/27 season. The Garden Route Badgers had a reasonable 2025/26 season across all formats.
The two top batsmen, George van Heerden and Ruan Terblanche will join Division 1 team’s next season. Van Heerden, who also captained the Badgers in the white ball format will move to the Knights (in Bloemfontein), who have been promoted to division 1. He was in superb form with the bat during his tenure of two seasons with the Badgers. Terblanche, who spent three seasons with the Oudtshoorn based team, has been contracted by Boland after having a fine season with the bat. A third player, the all-rounder Kyle Jacobs, will join the Northern Cape Heat.
The most significant new acquisition is the former Protea top order batsman, Janneman Malan. The 30-year-old Malan has represented the Proteas in 23 One-Day-internationals and 11 T20 tests. He scored three international centuries with a highest score of 177. The middle of the three brothers, André, represented the Badgers (between 2021 and 2023) whilst the eldest sibling, Pieter, also represented South Africa in red ball cricket.
Other newcomers are the hard-hitting Dolphins top order batsman, Slade van Staden, and the all-rounder from the Titans – Leo Sadler. To beef up the bowling department Modise Maloka (from the Knights) and Nipho Mpongose (from Northern Cape) will join the Badgers.
Enathi Khitshini, who captained the SA Schools team last season, was rewarded with a high-performance contract.
Coach, Lotle Sesesle, has however put faith in the majority of his players of the past season and has retained such players. The Board of Directors has also put faith in the coaching team and has renewed the contracts of Sesele (Head Coach), Warren Bell (Assistant Coach) and Tyler Easton (Strength and Conditioning Coach).
It was recently announced that Cricket South Africa (CSA) will apply various changes to the structure of the domestic competition ahead of the 2026/27 season. The seven teams in division two of first-class cricket will contest 12 three-day matches – at home and away – each. Previously, the division two first-class season comprised six four day matches per team.
The CEO of SWD Cricket, Albertus Kennedy, has shared his excitement with the newly contracted squad. “Winning teams at all levels – especially our flagship teams – is an important strategic objective of the company”, he said. “Our ambition is that the current personnel will take us to division 1 in the next two years promotion/relegation cycle of domestic cricket in South Africa”, he concluded.
The contracted squad is:
ELEVEN PROFESSIONAL CONTRACTS FOR 2026/27
Liam Alder, Banele Cele, Benni Hansen, Zack Momberg, Pheko Moletsane, Nathan Engelbrecht, Yaseen Valli, Janneman Malan, Slade van Staden, Leo Sadler and Modise Maloka
HIGH PERFORMANCE CONTRACTS
Enathi Kitshini, Nipho Mpungose, and Jade Richter