Tazmin Brits, unmasked

Tazmin Brits never intended to become the face of South African cricket. When she first picked up a bat in her 20s - her javelin career done for after a horrific car crash ahead of London Olympics - it was more a means of socialising than a determined bid for international glory. Now, at an all-time peak of an unlikely sporting career, the South African has etched her name in an elite bracket of performers globally - quietly, persistently and unapologetically on her own terms.

Yet, Brits finds herself navigating the paradox of success and invisibility.

For a career once deemed fit for T20s only, Brits has had a remarkable 18 months in ODI cricket. She's become the quickest to reach seven centuries - surpassing Meg Lanning - with five of those coming in 2025 alone, eclipsing Smriti Mandhana's tally. At one point, she even threatened to equal Amy Sattherwaite's record of four consecutive hundreds but the law of averages caught up, as she suspected it would. Her latest hundred to set up South Africa's first points in the 2025 World Cup has catapulted her from obscurity to fourth in the ICC ODI rankings. There's a hint of quiet satisfaction as she recalls the steep climb, but layered beneath is a deeper struggle - feeling peripheral despite being in the spotlight.

"I think I'm still fighting to be seen, to be honest," Brits tells Cricbuzz of that nagging thought. "I feel if I was seen, I would get maybe more opportunities in leagues. I'm not one for stats but... I'm sixth [at the time of this interview] in the world now in ODIs whereas just a few months ago, I was something like 200-odd. So I ask myself often, what more do I need to do to get into leagues? And what more do I need to do to be seen in that sense? Then I just tell myself if God doesn't open the door, then it's clearly not my door to be opened. So I just have faith and I try and be patient with that."

Brits's quiet rebellion is evident both in how she plays the game and how she celebrates success. Her maiden ODI fifty came two years and 20 innings into her career, and the Proteas opener recalls how Laura Wolvaardt calmed her emotions in the middle when she was about to cry. In the very next game, she followed it up with her maiden century. With a muted finger-to-the-lip celebration and a hand-written '100' sign held aloft, she had let her bat, and resilience, do the talking.

Turning the outside noise into fuel that lifts her performance on the field is her way of staying focussed and thriving under pressure.

"I feed off things like this," Brits says. "For a lot of people, when you score 100, then you're a hero and then the next game, if you score zero, you shouldn't be playing cricket. You should get a second job.

"People are very critical in general. I don't think people, and it's even in the environment that I'm in, I don't think people really know me. Like, I'm actually a very soft-hearted person. I'm actually a very lovable person. I'm sensitive. But I don't think people take time to get to know us as humans. They're quick to judge you on maybe your performance instead of your character. I'm very big on being a better human. I'd rather be a good human and remembered for that than for making 171 runs."

Cricket, by default, judges its heroes through numbers and stats. Rarely are they understood or valued as people. Just before her career-best 171 against Pakistan came another century - the second in her streak of three. For a long stretch in the middle of that innings, Brits struggled hard with "nothing coming off".

But she had a job to do for South Africa, rebuilding the chase of 256 after they were reduced to 43/2 inside the PowerPlay. She did that with aplomb, grinding it out despite her struggles which will hide behind the triple-digit figure against her name now. The story was in the celebration thereafter - mimicking Arsenal's Victor Gyokeres's Bane-inspired mask gesture - that was also her shield.

"He plays for Arsenal - I'm not even gonna try to pronounce his name." Maybe she doesn't need to. The sentiment behind is what hit home.

"I was actually just scrolling on TikTok one night, probably two or three weeks before Pakistan trip, and this guy's story came up and then his celebration was putting on a mask and it boiled down to like when he walks onto the field or onto the soccer pitch, he's got to put a mask on because he's got to be someone else because people don't know him. It just related to me and it just like touched me and I was like, 'yes, this is exactly how I feel - the way this guy just like shows up. And I was like, I said to friends of mine in Cape Town the weekend before I left for the World Cup now for Pakistan's tour. I was like, yes, this resonates. I'm going to do it."

Just like Gyokeres, Brits understands what it means to step into a role that the world sees while, at the same time, the real person beneath often goes unnoticed. To her, recognition has always felt temporary. So, like the Arsenal striker, she was removing the mask by putting it on - it was a little self-indulgence but also a little protest against being overlooked.

Behind her mask, though, is someone deeply aware of her vulnerability. "Clearly my technique is not like, say, Laura Wolvaardt's or, I don't know, the best of the best. But when I see a gap and then I just tell myself, however I need to get the ball in that gap, it needs to happen.

"It doesn't always look very pretty, but I guess pretty runs also just runs at the end of the day, yeah?"

Multiple surgeries after the car crash left Brits with limited body mobility even after relearning to walk. Some cricket shots became off-limits by default - but she adapted, resorting to some unorthodoxy to stay in the game. Sweeps, for example, are one way to tackle the spin-heavy attacks for the subcontinental tracks in this World Cup but it doesn't always come off for Brits. But she cares more about contributing to the team's cause rather than the aesthetics of it.

"We had a lot of camps, which was nice because we had skill specific camps. So, just facing a lot of spin and a lot of balls helping me work on head positions.

"Like I say, it doesn't always come off... but I just think sometimes no matter what it looks like, as long as you getting it in the gap and you get in the runs, then I guess, I guess that is it. But yeah, like just working very hard.

"Like, in a slog sweep, while a normal batter might lunge a certain way - I might have to lunge with my foot open because of my knee. My meniscus has been removed, so I've got bone against bone in my knee. I don't have a cartridge. So, it's just like little things like that. I just try to figure out what I need to do that it doesn't hurt.

"But I mean, with my knee, it'll pretty much always hurt. Yeah, so, I just move and if my body can move, it will move that way. If it can't move, then clearly it will tell me something's not right. You can't move that way. And then I just adapt. Sometimes I come down the wicket and my body's going left, but my bat's going right. It's very weird. I don't know. Sometimes it just, it just works.

"I mean, I was told a lot of times that I'm not an ODI player. So I'm just trying to prove that I might not look like the perfect person to maybe defend a ball, but I will keep that ball out if I need to. And I think that's just changing the game, no matter how you do it, as long as you do it."

In her own way Brits overcame her limitations - not just in technique but also age. At 34, she knows she may be at the pinnacle of career now, but being a late-starter also means it's the twilight years. In the most unexpected twist of fate, cricket has now become her very realistic hope of fulfilling a long-lost desire.

Brits still carries a quiet reminder of her crashed Olympic dream inked into her skin: the iconic five rings tattoo. It currently "resembles an Audi logo," she says in a self-deprecating way, masking her pain with humour. But behind that joke is her story of survival, both physical and emotional.

"I hope my body survives for another three years," she laughs, "because otherwise what is this thing for?"

But even if she does make it to LA28, Brits doesn't plan any updates to the tattoo. Its raw, unaltered form holds a way deeper meaning than any inscription ever could. "This was from where the journey started. If it wasn't for that accident and going through what I went through, I would probably not find myself where I am today into the cricket space. As plain as what it is, I think it resembles to character of where it started."

For Brits, cricket was never about competition but a lifeline. "I don't even have to look back, I can really just vouch for that now [that cricket gave me a second chance at life]. I think I wouldn't have survived in a 8 to 5 job in an office - my mental state would have depleted."

"It was actually just supposed to be more socializing, and once I started scoring runs and I was like, 'okay, this feels good'. It gave me back that sensation of feeling wanted and feeling like you're important and worthy - if I can put it that way?"

For someone who stumbled upon cricket when her world was shattered, Brits has built a more than impactful second innings. Cricket is now her identity, and therefore perhaps also the reason why being undervalued hits deeper. She's stubbornly trying to reshape how she's defined - one century, and one celebration at a time - but on her own terms.