New SA domestic season – more cricket, more opportunity and the promised land of 1,000 runs and 50 wickets

Opportunity knocks for Gavin Kaplan and other potential Proteas cricketers. With two expanded competitions – the Pro20 Cup and the 1st Class Series – the 2026-7 domestic season provides more cricketers with more opportunity than ever before. Incoming tours by Australia and England are supplemented in England's case by a parallel tour by the England Lions in December. There are opportunities also for the SA Emerging team, who play in the 16-team Pro20 Cup starting on 22 September and running through October into November. The SA20 auction happens in the middle of it all – on 8 October – adding a sprinkling of spice. JOIN our Whatsapp channel for more SA cricket news The expanded domestic first-class tournament, featuring 10 matches rather than last season's seven, starts at four venues on Thursday. An ambitious young cricketer, a Mihlali Mpongwana or Matthew de Villiers chosen, say, for SA A against the Lions, might play as many as 12 or 13 first-class matches a season. The promised land of 1,000 runs and 50 wickets in the season is very much on. 'Guys on the fringes are closer now' Boland's Gavin Kaplan, who scored 903 first-class runs in 2025-26 and was awarded with a debut SA A cap against Bangladesh last month, is someone for whom more cricket can only be a good thing. ' 'Definitely – the guys on the fringes are closer now to bigger things with more fixtures,' he told Club Cricket SA . 'I think squad depth is going to be tested more than in previous seasons.' 'From my point of view, I'd just like to build on last year. I don't have any particular goals. but if you'd told me that I'd score 900 first-class runs in the season I'd definitely have taken that.' 'It can only benefit the game' Andrew Breetzke, the chief executive of the SA Players' Association (SACA), points out that his members have long campaigned for more first-class cricket. From SACA's point of view, 10 matches rather than seven is a small but significant gain for their members. 'We're pleased this has happened. It can only benefit the game. It costs more, sure, and you always have to deal with the weather interfering at some venues, but generally we're very happy,' Breetzke told Club Cricket SA . Breetzke adds that the architecture of the local game looked very different even five years ago. There was no SA20, for instance, and less cricket than there is now for either the SA A side or the Emerging side. There has been an explosion of opportunities. The pathways out of SA Under-19 cricket, with Under-19 World Cups all televised, are now more developed, with a player like Lhuan-dre Pretorius – Breetzke tends not to mention players by name – capable of leapfrogging straight into the Proteas shop window when they've hardly left their colours blazer in the cupboard. Cricket is better for cricketers themselves, but whether it is more transparent and meaningful for fans is moot. Home Test cricket is intermittent, with a full program this season, but no home Tests in 2025-26 and therefore no opportunity to play as World Test Championship title holders – a bizarre state of affairs. The question of worth There's also the question of worth. Kaplan is highly regarded by his peers, which is why he was chosen as the Men's Domestic Players' Player of the Season at this year's CSA awards. Patrick Moroney, the national convenor of selectors, concurs, for it was Moroney and his panel who chose Kaplan to play against Bangladesh A, where he got 97 in the second Test. For all the worth of those 903 runs, Kaplan received precious few opportunities to play against Keshav Maharaj or Kagiso Rabada. That's another area in which cricket is different now to that of five years ago – the star players play even less first-class cricket than they played back then. Kaplan might have played against Rabada at the Wanderers on Thursday, when the Lions entertain Boland in the teams' respective starts to the first-class season, except that Rabada has a hamstring strain. Still, in all likelihood he'll face Codi Yusuf, Lutho Sipamla and Kwena Mphaka, a nifty attack on a track that will likely have gas. 'I haven't done that well at the Wanderers in the past, to be honest,' said Kaplan with what you imagine is the ghost of a smile. 'It's really just a case of being smarter with your plans. A back-foot punch in Paarl on a wicket not known for its bounce is something to try. That's not always the wisest shot at the Wanderers.' Up the road, the Titans were strongly considering picking Beyers Swanepoel, who jetted in from London on Tuesday, for their home opener against the Dolphins. 'Word has gone out that Shukri Conrad wants the national players to play in the opening two rounds, so we're likely to pick Simon Harmer,' said Titans CEO Jacques Faul. More Luke Alfred opinion on Club Cricket SA CSA and Beyers Swanepoel's stalemate is becoming harder to defend