Mpumalanga Rhinos gear up for 2024/25 CSA season

The Mpumalanga Rhinos are rearing and ready to go ahead of the 2024/25 CSA domestic cricket season, beginning their campaign on Saturday, September 21, under new coaching staff with lofty ambitions.

The Rhinos enjoyed what was one of their better seasons in recent memory in 2023/24, winning a match in all three domestic competition formats for the first time since the advent of the new Cricket South Africa domestic system in the 2021/22 season.

Their best performance came in the CSA Provincial One-Day Challenge where they won two of their games, beating Border and even the eventual winners, the SA Emerging XI.

But while the Rhinos’ abilities were visible in patches throughout the season, the men from Mpumalanga struggled to string together any form of consistency upon which they could build.

What undoubtedly didn’t help matters was that the coaching staff changed during the season as interim staff took over a little past halfway, with permanent appointments needing to be made by the Mpumalanga Cricket Union.

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However, going into the 2024/25 season, these appointments have been made official. It will be the duo of Mbasa Gqadushe as head coach and Gerhard Vosloo as assistant coach that will take on these duties for the Rhinos this season. Gqadushe and Vosloo were the two temporary appointments during the T20 competition last season and are looking to build on the promise shown in 2023/24.

“A big goal for us this season is to become competitive more regularly, as we’ve already ensured that teams are now taking us more seriously than before,” Gqadushe said. “While a division 1 promotion is up for grabs, I would really just like to win a trophy for Mpumalanga. We saw what the Limpopo Impalas achieved last season and there’s no reason we can’t do the same.”

Vosloo recognised the importance of using the momentum they developed in 2023/24, while also balancing development within the union. “I think we have a massive responsibility not just towards the team, but also the locals in Mpumalanga and Mbombela to perform and compete to create a future for potential Rhinos within our youth structure, and I think we did that in the short time we had as interim coaches,” he said. “We have to build on that to be competitive as we have some amazing teams in our competition.”

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Neither Gqadushe nor Vosloo are strangers to Mpumalanga Cricket.

Gqadushe joined MP in the 2018/19 season as a player-coach, which was coincidentally his last season as a player. Since then he’s held various coaching positions within Mpumalanga Cricket and the union’s development structures around the province. He moved from KZN Inland where he had spent many years playing first class cricket for the union.

Meanwhile, Vosloo has lived in Mbombela since 1998 and is a Hoërskool Nelspruit old boy. He’s represented Mpumalanga in all high school provincial age groups, except in his matric year when he was called up to the senior side. He also played for the Titans Colts team, which he captained between 2010 and 2013. He has been involved in coaching of some sort since 2007 and has also held various roles within Mpumalanga Cricket.

The Rhinos’ season kicks off this Saturday, September 21, with a clash with the Garden Route Badgers in the CSA Division 2 T20 Knockout competition. The game gets under way at Uplands College at 13:00.