From nearly giving up on life after a horrific car accident to being a lynchpin in South Africa's batting order, Tazmin Brits' story is one of absolute strength and resolve.
Against Pakistan, as Tazmin Brits raised her bat to soak in the applause after her third successive ODI hundred, a tattoo peeked out from under her left sleeve. Five coloured rings, almost hidden, were unmistakably the Olympic symbol. It was a small glimpse of a dream she had once chased, and a quiet reminder of the journey she had endured to reach this moment.
A dream unfulfilled in javelin
Several athletes have switched sports to cricket, but Brits’ story is different. Unlike others who actively chose cricket, she was guided into it by circumstance, after years of resilience and reinvention.
Born in 1991 in Stilfontein, a small mining town in South Africa’s North West province, Brits grew up immersed in sport. Her mother played tennis, her father and brother rugby, and she herself tried almost everything, including football, netball and hockey, before the javelin became her focus.
At just 16, she emerged on the international stage, winning gold in the javelin at the 2007 World Youth Championships in Ostrava, Czech Republic, with a throw of 51.71 meters. She narrowly defeated Finland’s Carita Hinkka (51.61m) and Sini Kiiski (50.75m). Earlier that year, she had set a personal best of 56.55 meters, and in the qualifiers reached 55.90 meters. She improved further in 2008 with a throw of 57.55 meters. At the 2010 World Under-20 Junior Championships, she took bronze with a throw of 50.25 meters, having also touched 56 meters in March 2010. By 2011, her dream of competing at the London Olympics was within reach.
Then, in November 2011, life intervened. Driving home one night, Brits lost control of her car. She was thrown from the vehicle as it rolled, sustaining a broken pelvis, a dislocated hip, and a burst bladder. Hospitalised for three months, she returned home in a wheelchair, fully dependent on her mother for basic tasks. She recalled: “When I woke up in hospital, the first thing you do is you feel for your legs. I tried to move, I thought I might have been paralysed."
Doctors predicted a year to walk again. She struggled with severe depression and even contemplated taking her own life. Yet within seven months, she was moving again, determined to reclaim her athletic life, clinging to a hope to make it to London. But her recovery was complicated, with a bone growing over a screw in her pelvis. After recovering, she started working as a waitress, but she gave javelin another go.
In 2016, she competed at the ACNW League in Potchefstroom, recording a throw of 52.62 meters. She played till 2018, but another sport started occupying her life.
Brits' journey to cricket
Strong performances at the provincial level earned her a place in South Africa’s emerging players programme. In February 2019, she was named to the Powerade Women’s National Academy intake. By July 2020, she was the CSA Women’s Provincial Cricketer of the Year.
Brits made her T20I debut against Bangladesh in May 2018 and her ODI debut against Pakistan in 2021. Over the next few years, she became a key figure for the national side. Thus far, she has played 39 ODIs, scoring 1,419 runs, and has yet to record a duck. In T20Is, she has amassed 1,719 runs at an average of 32.43.
Her breakthrough came in the 2023 T20 World Cup semi-final, when her 68 off 55 balls helped South Africa reach their first World Cup final.
Against Pakistan last week, she struck her third ODI ton in a row, in an innings that included a 200-plus opening stand with Laura Wolvaardt, the third-highest in women’s ODIs. Her first two hundreds in the streak came against the West Indies in June and against Pakistan three days earlier. One more hundred in the next game will equal Amy Satterthwaite's world record. This year, she has already made four fifties, a joint world record with Smriti Mandhana. She now has the chance to stand alone on the list with the upcoming World Cup.
The 34-year-old is one of only seven South African women to make their ODI debut after turning 30, and the first woman to score six ODI centuries after 30, surpassing legends such as Suzie Bates, Charlotte Edwards, Tammy Beaumont, and Amy Satterthwaite, proving that age really is no barrier.
Since the start of 2024, she has 891 ODI runs at an average of 55.68, with five hundreds - only Mandhana has more. Barring Wolvaardt, no one else from her side has made over 650 runs, and she is already one of four openers from South Africa to score more than 1,000 runs. She is also one of two from the team to make over 350 runs and average over 40.
Even now, life remains challenging. Her father passed away during the pandemic, and her mother is battling breast cancer. But Brits refuses to let obstacles define her.
While an Olympics never came during her javelin career, maybe, just maybe, LA28 will offer that possibility, albeit in a different sport. A second chance that she's worked hard for, one that might finally bring meaning to her Olympic tattoo, ensuring a full circle, quite literally.
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