Johannesburg – 31 October 2025:
With numerous players away with the various Proteas and SA A squads touring the subcontinent, the DP World Lions are going to have to dig deep into their pipeline for personnel in their opening weekend of CSA T20 Challenge action.
Our DP World Lions take on Boland in Johannesburg on Sunday and it would be a major blow for any team to be without Codi Yusuf, Lutho Sipamla, Connor Esterhuizen, Reeza Hendricks, Kwena Maphaka, Bjorn Fortuin, Nqaba Peter and Zubayr Hamza. Star all-rounder Delano Potgieter is available for the opening match before he flies out for the SA A one-day series in India.
But coach Russell Domingo, to use an old-fashioned phrase, seems to dig it.
“No, a lot of our players won’t be available, but I’m really excited to be bringing in a couple of U19 prospects, guys like JJ Basson, Morteza Manack and Jason Rowles, and even more youngsters into the squad. Hopefully they will be able to get some opportunity,” Domingo said.
Mitchell van Buuren, Richard Seletswane, Evan Jones, Beyers Swanepoel, Wandile Makwetu and Siya Plaatjie are still available from the four-day squad, while given his fluent form in red-ball cricket, Josh Richards could well also get a look-in for the T20 competition.
Basson (especially), Manack and Rowles can all bowl, but the latter two are all-rounders and their ability to bowl some spin gives them a better chance of being selected.
With Fortuin and Peter both away, Domingo admitted that it could be all change in terms of how #ThePrideOfJozi approach T20 cricket this season, having won the last two editions of the tournament.
“We are really short on experienced spinners, so we will need to look at the balance of our side and maybe relook some of the styles of play we have used so successfully. Maybe we will have to go in with less batting depth. We might change more from game-to-game this campaign and it will be very much conditions-based,” Domingo said.
Our DP World Lions only have three home games in this season’s CSA T20 Challenge, making it important to win at their DP World Wanderers Stadium fortress. After the game against Boland, they take on the KZN Inland Tuskers on Saturday, November 8, and then host the North-West Dragons on Wednesday, November 19.
Domingo’s charges only lost two of their seven matches last season, on the way to topping the log. But the competitiveness of the tournament was shown by the top three teams, losing just twice and being separated by only three points.