Dolphins

Kingsmead sits by the Indian Ocean in Durban, close enough to the water that a sea breeze off the Bluff has been known to carry the ball, and its 25,000-seat bowl has hosted the Dolphins since the franchise took shape in 2003. What set the club apart from the other South African franchises formed around that time was structure: the Dolphins were built as a single professional entity representing KwaZulu-Natal, and they took the field for the first time in the 2004–05 season.

The Dolphins have taken the CSA 4-Day Series outright twice, in 2020–21 and 2022–23, and they added the one-day title again in 2024–25. A runners-up finish followed four years later.

Green and black have been worn by a run of South African names with real weight behind them: Shaun Pollock and Lance Klusener came through the province, Hashim Amla built much of his game there, and David Miller has carried the colours into the modern T20 era. Marques Ackerman now captains the side.

Finals are where the Dolphins have measured themselves against the Warriors and the Titans, the two franchises they have met most often when a trophy was actually on the table. No single fixture among those has earned the kind of name attached to the Titans' meetings with the Lions, but the results — shared titles, contested run-ins — say enough about how close those matches have run.