South Africa Women’s Team Secures First Win in India Tour as Brits Shines with Career-Best 81

Tazmin Brits' Redemption: From Struggles to Match-Winning Knock

Tazmin Brits secures win for South Africa / CRICKET SOUTH AFRICA ON FACEBOOK.

By Moses Ochieng

If there weren't many Tazmin Brits fans among the 12,000-strong crowd at the Chepauk on Friday, her Powerplay batting wouldn't have won her any new ones either. She admitted bluntly to the press, "I may have scored the runs today, but I'm not happy [how I started]." However, during her 92 minutes at the crease, Brits redeemed herself with a career-best 81, central to South Africa's first win on this India tour in five attempts.

Her flawed knock was an innings of two halves, as she went from struggling with timing to a timely acceleration, giving South Africa an above-par score in the three-match T20I series opener in Chennai.

A gold medalist in javelin in another timeline, Brits kept swinging her bat at everything in hopes of quickly finding her T20 form. However, she struggled to make contact, and when she did, she couldn't push the ball beyond the square. Of the eight balls she faced from Pooja Vastrakar in her two Powerplay overs, Brits was beaten four times and managed only a single run in her first 10 deliveries. After a mediocre ODI series in Bengaluru, where she scored just 61 runs in three matches, it was clear Brits was trying too hard.

Fortunately, at the other end was an in-form Laura Wolvaardt, who hit Renuka Thakur for a 16-run over and generally looked like she was batting on a different pitch altogether. Perhaps overcompensating as she felt the need to take all the risks on Brits's behalf, Wolvaardt nonetheless demonstrated how to take the attack to the opposition.

Brits quickly adapted, choosing to hang back once the spinners came on and waiting for the ball to come to her bat as she tried to get out of her slump. This approach allowed her to exploit the less-defended areas behind square, where she hit seven of her 10 boundaries that night.

This included a sweep for her first four to ease her nerves, a flick to regain confidence, and a pull to take advantage of the Indian spin trio's lackluster bowling. Despite these shots, Brits was still scoring at a run-a-ball 25 when another in-form batter, Marizanne Kapp, assumed the aggressor's role after Wolvaardt's dismissal.

Brits rose to the occasion, finishing the 17th over with two massive sixes, slog-sweeping Radha Yadav between midwicket and long-on on consecutive balls. In Deepti Sharma's final over, which yielded 18 runs, Brits added two more boundaries. She scored 31 runs off the last 15 deliveries she faced before being dismissed on the final ball of the visitors' innings.

Noticing India's off-side heavy field, Brits quickly shifted her focus to the leg side, finding gaps or powering the ball over the in-field. An impressive 79% of her runs—59 out of 81—came on the on-side, including all three of her towering sixes.

"I don't think it's nerves. We're cricketers and unfortunately that's life. We get into deep holes. If you don't get runs, you're not doing your job. So, I think it was maybe just more in myself. I tried to hit the ball too hard in the first few overs. I wanted to hit the leather off the ball, maybe send the ball back to South Africa. But yeah, I think I wasn't getting [into] good positions. I think there's a lot of basic things I should have looked at now that I think about it," Brits added.

Brits went from struggling to find her batting rhythm to delivering a match-defining knock, proving the old adage true: it's not how you start, but how you finish. By doing so, she answered the captain's call for the extra 20 runs that can make all the difference.