South Western Districts

That gap explains a lot about how the club is built now. For years it sat inside the Cape Cobras franchise system before breaking out on its own in 2021, and in July 2022 it dropped the South Western Districts name for a sponsor-friendly one, the Garden Route Badgers. No provincial trophy has followed — not in the one-day competition, the T20 Cup or the four-day series — but the nearest the team has come was the 2022–23 season, when it reached the final of the second-tier One-Day Challenge and lost to KwaZulu-Natal Inland.

The playing staff has done more for the club's name than the honours board has. Ottniel Baartman went from Oudtshoorn's attack to a Proteas cap and a title with the Sunrisers Eastern Cape in the SA20, and Janneman Malan's route to South Africa's white-ball sides ran through the same club. On the women's side, Annerie Dercksen was named the International Cricket Council's Emerging Women's Cricketer of the Year in 2025.