CHENNAI: "There was a time when I actually wanted to retire.”
Tazmin Brits makes a passing reference to a period of her life where she wanted to leave the sport that became her second love; javelin throw was her first. After winning the World Youth Championships aged 16, a life-threatening car crash put the brakes on her Olympic dream before she eventually took up cricket. The rather challenging phase that the 34-year-old was referring to was only three years ago.
It was 2022, and Brits had just come back from her first World Cup experience in New Zealand. Even though South Africa reached yet another semifinal before losing to Australia, the then 31-year-old had a tournament to forget. She made 52 runs in five games, averaging 10.4. And with Dane van Niekerk — the regular skipper at the time who had missed the tournament due to injury — and Lizelle Lee still being a part of the starting XI, Brits was not a regular.
That, and her poor run in the tournament took a toll on her. “That was my first World Cup in general and then my first ODI World Cup. And then the likes of Lizelle and Dane were still in the team. And of course, I wasn't getting a lot of game time. I was just like, ‘they're still young. How long is this going to go on? Am I going to sit on the side the whole time?’ It's almost like you feel you don't want to travel just to travel. You want to play cricket at the end of the day because that's what you love. So, 2022, that's when, after that World Cup, I was like maybe I should retire,” Brits recalls in a conversation with The New Indian Express.
The fighter within her did not want to give up just yet. Because, despite the constant labelling that she was only a T20 player, deep down, Brits knew she was capable of more; that she could play ODIs and Tests. It became a battle of proving to herself that she could dominate at the highest level and become the best in the world.
However, the road ahead was not easy. For more than a year and a half into her ODI career, she hadn’t scored a fifty, and her highest score was 48. Brits desperately kept looking for that one big score. Her inner demons were shouting down on her better angels, stopping her from setting down a path to greatness. “It (the dark voices within) actually almost got the best of me because that's when I also decided maybe I should retire because I put so much pressure on myself to try and prove to the world and to prove to people that I am capable of getting that half century, and batting those long periods,” she says.
The 2023 T20 World Cup in Cape Town and Gqeberha came at a time when she needed it the most. Brits was the star of the semifinal against England, taking South Africa to their first World Cup final, and that too, at home. In that semifinal, she smashed a fifty, popped a vein, took four catches and showed off her Olympic rings tattoo after being named the Player of the match. There is going to be a Proteas tattoo if we win the trophy, she said. South Africa lost the final, but that campaign gave Brits the confidence to keep going.
“That's where I actually realised that I'm capable of a lot more. Maybe the doubts or the voices in my head weren't correct. Because that's where we made history, and in that semifinal, when I won the play of the match and we ended up going to the final, the World Cup final for the first time ever. In that World Cup, I just said to myself, I've got nothing to lose at the end of the day, because I was in any case not being seen in a sense, and I wasn't really performing to the best of my ability. I just went in there with guns blazing. So that actually played in my favour.”
It kept her going and the moment she was looking for came in December 2023 when she scored her first fifty against Bangladesh. Brits brought out a ballerina celebration — a dedication to her father, Andre Brits, who passed away during COVID in 2021. In the very next game, she doubled up, scoring her first ODI century; out came a piece of paper with "100" written on it as she gestured with her fingers to her lips. It was an announcement to the world that she has arrived and is here to stay.
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As soon as she got that first century out of the way, Brits gained confidence. And with that, she started to learn more about her skills and what she needed to do to get better. Whether it is getting into the top ten ICC rankings, scoring more centuries, batting time, tackling spin, the South African was ready to put in the hard yards and be patient. After all, Brits has seen that if she does, she can do a lot more with her ability.
Thus began the long toil, along with batting coach Baakier Abrahams. Brits’ strong build meant she never had any problem clearing the boundaries. However, it meant she rarely rotated the strike. That was their first step. “A lot of times, I would just look for the boundaries. So we worked on manipulating the field a bit more, there were no shorts or 35 or 45 (fields). How do we actually (play) reverse or lap or different positions, waiting for the ball and playing later… because a lot of times I used to get eager to go over the fielders and the boundary instead of maybe just looking into the gaps and actually rotating strike more.
“I worked on playing spin more. I worked on choosing, selecting shots and not taking too many high risks in ODI, maybe just doing that at a later stage, giving myself more time because the minute I bat a bit longer, it seems like my game changes. So I had to prove myself in that. And that also became a patience game because I would a lot of times of the 50 or the 100 instead of working through my innings. We had to definitely work on playing more in my box, playing a bit later.
"It was the long hours; there were times where I batted three hours to get used to focussing for such a long period of time. There's still a lot of shots that I wish I could add, like maybe a sweep or going over extra cover more often. It's those types of shots that maybe my body doesn't allow me to do that I want to improve. 'Bakes' (Baakier), our batting coach, was like how are we going to get to that? And it was just repetition after repetition to get there.”
The work she had put in, and having an opening partner in Laura Wolvaardt, helped turn things around. The results started coming as she scored her second hundred against Sri Lanka in April last year. She flourished in the shortest format as well but just when momentum was on her side, she had a knee injury mid 2024. She was racing against time to make the India tour later that year. Once she made that, just as she was getting ready for another T20 World Cup in Dubai, came the dreadful news of her mother Zeldine Brits being affected by breast cancer.
Brits’ world came to a stop. She contemplated not travelling for the global event. “Cricket can always come and go. But you're my mom, I only have one of you,” Brits told Zeldine, who had to undergo surgery, chemotherapy and cancer treatment.
“My mom is very, very strong. A lot of my strength actually comes from her and she was like, ‘no, go, I'll be fine’. Funny enough, after she went through all the chemo and the treatment and the operation, she wasn't allowed to fly because she had to continue the chemo treatment. But when we went to the World Cup final (South Africa lost to New Zealand), she literally came for two days. She only came for the final and she flew back and the next day she had chemo.
“To be able to do that, at the state that she was in, because she was weak, she lost all her hair. She had rashes on her body, the heat in Dubai was very bad for her. But my mom's a fighter. So for her to come to that final, that meant a lot. If she could be in India, she probably would. But, unfortunately, she can't. She has to go for checkups now. She is clean, so lucky for that. But she did say if we do go to the final in India, she will definitely fly down again,” says Brits beaming with pride.
Watching her mother fight cancer and come out of it has inspired Brits to give her everything on the field, but it has also put things into perspective. She knows that cricket is not the be all and end all of everything. “I play for her and for my dad. It definitely does motivate me. But also just to know that if cricket doesn't go well, I've still got love and support at the end of the day. At the end of the day, we all have to retire at some point. And then when you retire, you go back home and you still have to be Tazmin. They're not going to remember the Tazman Brits who scored like 10 centuries. You understand they're going to remember you for you. But she makes me want to play better every time,” the South African opener adds.
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At the time of this conversation, Brits had six centuries to her name. She is a vital member and a match-winner for the Proteas team. Now, if things get hard or the doubts creep in, Brits has Dr Koketjo Tsebe, the team psychologist, and her teammates to rely on. For the 34-year-old feels at home in the Proteas set-up where she could be herself as a person.
And of the six hundreds she had going into the World Cup, four of them had come this year, starting with a gruelling hundred against India during the tri-series in Sri Lanka. She followed it up with three consecutive hundreds, one in West Indies — where Zeldine was there to watch her play during the T20Is — and two more in the hot and humid conditions of Pakistan. Brit is in a good space with regards to cricket, and so is her team.
On the field, the hundreds have started coming, but Brits isn't satisfied. She wants to do it at the biggest stage by lighting up the World Cup with her performances. Asked if she was worried about the law of averages catching up, Brits let out a chuckle. “I am actually worried about that,” she laughs, two days before their first game.
“I don't believe in peaking at the right time in cricket. But cricket is a funny game. A bowler is allowed to bowl a good ball. So that's going to happen. But yes, I do hope that the hundreds that I've been scoring up until now, I can contribute to the World Cup. What makes it even more challenging is it's not just another game. It's on a world stage. It's like the nerves. Even today, every time I walk out there and face the first ball, I am so nervous. Sometimes your feet don't even move. You feel like your heart's coming out of your chest. You don't breathe. But I'm hoping that once I do get through the first few balls that I can shift that mindset,” she adds.
That happened in the very first game. Call it nerves or a bad dream, South Africa were bundled out for 69 against England and suffered a massive defeat. Brits would later call the feeling of the defeat “nauseating” on Monday. However, it did not take long for Brits and South Africa to turn things around. In their second game against New Zealand, Brits scored her seventh ODI ton, surpassing former Australian legend Meg Lanning by becoming the fastest to do so. And in the process she also became the first ever to hit five hundreds in a calendar year.
For someone who did not cross the half-century mark till her 20th ODI, getting to seven hundreds in 41 innings is nothing short of remarkable. And clearly, she is just getting started. She has her eyes on the World Cup — a trophy that has slipped from the hands of South Africa for two consecutive years.
”We were in two finals in T20 WCs and we've never made a final in ODI. Just that alone is driving this team to do better because we know our capability as a team and we've actually been doing quite well. You don't do sports at the end of the day just to do sports as much as you love it. You do it to be the best in the world because it's your job. You want to go on the highest pinnacle. So winning this World Cup will definitely mean a lot.”
Brits has fought many battles within herself to get this far, and now, she will do everything in her power to help the Rainbow Nation reach conquer the world.
