WSB Western Province teams gearing up for the 2024/25 season
NEWLANDS – The preparations for the 2024/25 season are in full swing at World Sports Betting Newlands Cricket Ground.
Both teams, World Sports Betting Western Province Men and Women have started with the new season preparations, the men’s team enjoyed a successful preseason tour to the North. Meanwhile, Claire Terblanche’s chargers will next week embark on a pre-season tour to Oudtshoorn to play matches against SWD.
Men’s team head coach Salieg Nackerdien have announced Western Province stalwart Beuran Hendricks as the new CSA T20 Challenge captain.
The 34-year-old who was the Province vice-captain and now takes over the reins from last season captain and wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne who is on the international duty with the Proteas.
Leah Jones will continue to lead the women’s side for the season in both formats.
During the media day hosted at Newlands on Thursday, also attended by Western Province Cricket Association (WPCA) Corrie van Zyl, the new CSA T20 Challenge playing jersey was unveiled.
WPCA CEO Corrie van Zyl commented: “We are really excited for the upcoming season both from an on field and off field point of view. We have started to see positive signs at WSB Newlands, and we want to grow on these signs and help support both our Men’s and Women’s teams as they strive for success this season.”
Nackerdien has applauded the work done by the coaches during the off-season period.
“I think we had a fantastic winter program. It was quite a long stint in the indoors. The conditioning side of it, the strengthening side of it as well as the skill sets. And all credit to the skill coaches for the work that’s been done over the last sort of couple of months. Overall, I am very satisfied with where we’re at and what we achieved, obviously there’s a lot of guys also away on national duty and it’s for us now to make sure that what we have here is to prepare properly for our first game against [Goldrush] Boland on the 29th of September.”
Hendricks is thrilled by his appointment, he says the team is on the right track for the season.
“It’s an honour for me to be leading Western Province. It’s not something I take lightly, and my main focus will be to continue the work we as a team have done under Kyle Verreynne. Having started my career at Western Province it feels like a full circle moment being able to lead such a talented group.
“We’ve had a really good pre-season and I’m really excited to get the season going. I’m especially excited to see the rest of the squad put all the hard work they’ve done in the winter onto the field. It’s been a wet winter in Cape Town, but we’ve managed to go up north and spend some time in the middle.”
Terblanche added: “We welcome Dane van Niekerk, Oluhle Siyo and Rifqah Esau into our professional setup and I am very excited to see what they bring into our space and into the matches. The team overall looks good and we’re just all excited to just get going for the season and these pre-season matches will just pay a testament to our hard work and just to see where we’re at moving into the season when we start our matches in October.”