How The Proteas Women Have A Huge Weapon In Their Ranks In The Form Of Tazmin Brits

Tazmin Brits is a monster if she has her way on the 22 yards. She is destructive. She’s an avalanche waiting to explode on any given day. The longer she stays at the wicket, the more her opponents get infuriated.

Yet, this isn’t just any other marvel of the great game of cricket.

Here’s a talent that can walk away seconds after coming out to bat. Here’s someone whose sudden accumulation of one dot ball too many can leave her side, let alone the Protea cricket devotee seeth in rage and helplessness.

She’s a touch polarising and they say that no great thing ever came to exist in its full wake sans some disappointment.

Tazmin Brits is all this and more.

She’s an enigma from which there’s no cure.

A few months prior to setting one foot in South Africa for world cricket’s biggest sporting event- the ongoing Women’s T20 World Cup- Tazmin Brits was found guilty of breaching an important code of conduct of the ICC: Article 2.8 concerning the Code of Conduct for Players.

The right hander had expressed dissent towards an umpire’s decision following her dismissal in an international match.

Several months before, she was nowhere to be spotted in the annals of Cricket

Tazmin Brits was this renowned Javelin thrower competing at recognized international events.

Cricket was about as strange a thing to her as is playback singing to Jean Claude Van Damme!

And here she is!

A few hours back, as seen in the massively-exciting though eventually utterly one-sided contest featuring the mighty Aussies and the hosts South Africa, a familiar presence was seen wrestling with the Aussie spinners and the quicks.

It did occur as though Tazmin Brits was javelin throwing the Australian pace attack out of Cape Town during her vital knock of 45.

Attempting- and successfully so- to up the ante of Protea scoring just as the match was about to reach its halfway stage, Brits lifted Meghan Schutt out of the park towards the deep mid wicket fence.

It was a six so devastating in its construction that even the pickiest Aussie fan that’s hard to please would have clenched his fist in sheer nervousness.

Though, on the other hand, the reward of bearing with that muscular effort was entirely savoury if you were a Protea fan.

It lifted your spirits. You were impressed enough to wonder- is Tazmin Brits the newfound spark of the Protea fire?

Truth be told, you can’t help but take the question head on.

If you tread purely on the path of statistics, then what Tazmin Brits has or doesn’t have, leave massive scope for disappointment.

Which is why maybe it doesn’t exactly make sense to note those 715 runs from 33 T20I appearances for South Africa that have yielded scores at a batting average touching 29.

It’s only when you focus on the pyrotechnics behind the stats that you begin to marvel at the picture.

Few players in the current Proteas line up middle the white ball as avidly as Tazmin Brits.

She’s a bit of a rarity in that she can dance down the wicket, as she did the other evening to Meghan Schutt, a legend of the game, at any given opportunity.

She’s more than some cricketer representing a fabled and famed outfit; she’s an athlete unruffled by who or what she features against.

It does feel that in deep within her easy going persona, there’s a mighty warrior that’s just waiting to jump for one big tussle with South Africa’s opponent.

Moreover, with scores of that 45 (vs Australia) and that unbeaten half century against Bangladesh, the Sune Luus-side would hope that his mighty voyager carries on for one great odyssey.

And truth be told, it would be nothing short of that if the Proteas are to walk over the line in their next big semis clash against the English.

So now that the stage is set and the Proteas are ready to fire, is Tazmin Brits going to play the familiar marauder or perish early?

Only time will tell.