Taylor Bettelheim is in the ranks of professionally contracted Domestic cricketers for the first time after an elevation to the Central Stags’ contracted roster for 2025/26.

The 24-year-old top order batter made his Stags and first-class Plunket Shield debut for the Stags earlier this season as a member of the wider squad, having impressed selectors in District rep and Central Districts A cricket over recent seasons.

Bettelheim has gained his maiden contract as a result of Doug Bracewell’s retirement from all cricket earlier in the summer and says the opportunity to train full-time at CD’s Hastings HQ is exciting as he looks to keep building his Stags career.

Openers Curtis Heaphy & Taylor Bettelheim | PHOTOSPORT

“I was coaching at Hereworth School during the week prior to the contract news, and just having the extra time now to put in the work on myself in the gym and nets has definitely made a difference,” says Bettelheim.

“It also gives me the opportunity to put in dedicated recovery time — which is just as important, and just to be around the group more and be able to talk and learn off senior players becomes easier so I’ve really relished all of that with this opportunity.”

Bettelheim is the second Stag to be elevated this season, Tyler Annand having stepped up to a contract earlier in the 2025/26 summer after Tom Bruce moved onto a Casual Playing Agreement with CDCA.

Bettelheim made his Stags debut in Palmerston North in November with a first-class 62 in his first match against the Auckland Aces — and backed up with a second first-class fifty a fortnight later, against Canterbury in Napier.

An organised right-hander, he’s now played three Plunket Shield matches and says he took a lot of confidence from his start.

“You sometimes feel, when you got to a new level, that it's going to be a lot different, but it reassured me that it's just playing the same and preparing the same as you have in other games to get you the opportunity to play at that level. Trust the preparation.”

Sure, there were the obligatory nerves first morning of his debut, “but getting that first game under the belt and getting a fifty as well definitely helped to calm the nerves and that gives you the confidence that you belong at that level and can perform.

“With our head coach Haysie [Greg Hay] having been in that opening role himself for the team for so long, to be have conversations with him as a sounding board about batting at the top in first-class cricket and the way he went about it has been pretty ideal, really.

“I’ve really enjoyed working with him and it was Greg who actually rang me with the contract news as well which was nice.”

Bettelheim grew up in Tauranga and was selected for Northern Districts A before moving to Central Districts in 2023 to try to further his cricket.

Now representing Hawke’s Bay and the Havelock North club locally, he also shone for Wairarapa and notably broke Wairarapa’s men’s representative record for the highest individual innings with his 203 in last season’s Furlong Cup competition.

It was the first time any Wairarapa player had reached a double century, beating the previous record of 183 set by Englishman Matt Hunt in 2004, at Nelson’s Trafalgar Park.

Now Bettelheim is looking forward to up to four more Plunket Shield matches from the end of this month, if selected in the squad. 

The first half of the eight-round national competition was completed in December, after which the red-ball season paused for the Super Smash and back half of The Ford Trophy.

Fresh off winning The Ford Trophy title, the Stags are back into it from this Saturday, 28 February with a home four-day match at McLean Park (free admission) against the Wellington Firebirds.

The Stags are currently fourth in the Plunket Shield championship, but only nine points off the lead on a tight table — with up to 20 points available from each of the last four games.

“I’m really looking forward to that part of the season,” says Bettelheim. 

“It was a pretty big decision for me to move and come down here and leave the ND area, with the feeling that I would need to prove myself all over ahain and being in a new environment, but everyone was very welcoming and it was actually pretty seamless.

“To gain a contract now, I feel like that tough decision, that gamble if you like, and the hard work was all worth it.”

Article added: Monday 23 February 2026