Tiaan Brits: Unstoppable
Tiaan Brits is unstoppable once he gets going
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Tiaan Brits rediscovered his love for cricket in a cold and damp place. It didn’t look like that at the beginning, though.
His first call back home after settling in wasn’t filled with optimism and excitement. It was loaded with worry and uncertainty. His digs, a small caravan on the field next to the changing rooms, was a far cry from his parents’ home in Krugersdorp. The placement of the caravan was strategic, Brits cooked and showered in the changing room.
Brits grew up in an Afrikaans speaking home and attended schools where Afrikaans is the medium of communication. His English was so bad that he used Google Translate to get by in his first few days. The weather didn’t help. His first two months there were the coldest he had ever experienced. Temperatures hovered in the low teens and the occasional showers did not help.
“I have never experienced anything like that. I remember playing one of my first games wearing a long-sleeve skin, a long-sleeve playing shirt, and then two long-sleeved pullovers on top. I was freezing my ass off. It was so cold,” he shared.
Most South African youngsters travel to the UK in the South African winter to hone their skills in different conditions as part of their preparation for the next step: going into professional cricket. That wasn’t the case for Brits. The trip to Strathmore, Scotland, came at a time when Brits was uncertain about his future in the game.
Brits’ Grade 3 teacher didn’t think his career choice cute or practical. She told him that he needed to reconsider because being a professional cricketer was not a real job. Sports lore is filled with tales of athletes who used negative feedback as fuel in their careers. Brits didn’t make it his life’s mission to disprove his teacher. He simply didn’t pay attention to her.
His teacher’s views might have been influenced by the fact that Laerskool Millennium did not play much cricket. Their matches were more of an exhibitional nature, rather than competitive. In his Grade 7 year, Brits played a grand total of six matches. He was unbeaten in five of the those matches.
Things picked up when he got to Noordheuwel for his high school education. More matches meant increased opportunities for him to express himself with the bat. Brits went wild from 2015 to 2018. He reeled off 5555 runs in four years, before adding another 830 runs in his matric year.
“He was the first player in Noordheuwel’s history to score 1000-plus runs in a calendar year consecutively for four years,” Etienne Janse van Rensburg, the Noordheuwel Director of Cricket, shared.
His most prolific year was his Grade 10 season. He scored 1661 runs. His best work that season was an unbeaten 302 from 127 balls. He could have pushed on to see how far he could go, but Brits retired after the 43rd over.
It is possible that he might have gone up to 350 or more because the opposition, for some inexplicable reason, kept trying to cow him with the short ball. The problem was that Brits is strong on the hook and pull. They fed his strengths and he feasted. Of the 16 sixes he launched, a few of them landed in the church yard across the street.
“At one point, a few of my teammates went to stand by the church just to throw the ball back because I kept hitting it there into the church,” Brits recalled.
The best moment for Brits and his family was watching his aunt finding out that her nephew was the reason why she kept helping the boys retrieve cricket balls from the church instead of doing what she had gone to do. At one point, she had suggested to Brits’ teammates that one of his sixes should have been declared a 10 because it had gone further than others.
“The 302 is, to this day, a school record at Hoërskool Noordheuwel for the highest individual score,” Janse van Rensburg said.
Brits was on track to eclipse his 2017 run tally in 2019, his Matric year. Unfortunately, he had a truncated season, thanks to exam preparations and the exams themselves. He ended the season with just over 800 runs. It was enough to earn him an invitation to the Lions u19 trials.
Brits’ success at Noordheuwel was a means to an end. It paved the way into the Gauteng West age group teams, which opened the doors for him to be noticed for the Lions representative sides. After making the Lions u17A side, the next logical step was the Lions u19 side for the Khaya Majola Week, which set him up for the SA u19 and Lions Academy sides. That’s not what happened. He wasn’t selected for the Lions u19 team.
“I was heart broken by not making the u19 team. I struggled a lot with that, and when Covid hit in 2020, my head spiraled a bit. At one point, I decided to stop playing cricket completely and started playing golf more seriously,” Brits revealed.
He only picked up a bat towards the end of 2021 and the start of 2022. However, the comeback wasn’t a revival of the dream to pursue professional cricket. It remained shelved. Brits was playing cricket as a hobby. Five months later, he was on the plane to Scotland for a season with Strathmore CC, thanks to Andre Botha, his coach at Khosa CC.
The Strathmore community’s embrace helped to thaw Brits’ attitude towards his new environment. The batter, who survived on sweet stuff in his first four days in Scotland, was not short of dinner invitations. Most importantly, he learned his way around the kitchen and was soon whipping up half-decent meals for himself.
Brits immersed himself into the Strathmore way of life. He did a lot of sightseeing and learned a lot about their people and how they do things. He embraced their culture and cuisine. Brits helped with the general upkeep of his surroundings. He painted the fences around the field and did grass cutting work. He also helped with coaching the juniors.
The healthy cricket-life balance helped Brits to recapture the brilliance he showed for Noordheuwel years earlier. He crossed the 50-run mark 13 times. He scored five hundreds and added eight 50s. He ended up with 1006 runs in 15 innings for an average of 91.4. His most memorable innings was an unbeaten 133 from 58 balls in a T20 against Forforshire CC.
“That amazing season in Scotland reflamed my love for cricket and that led me to where I am now,” Brits shared.
He returned to a successful first half of the Premier League A season for Khosa. Brits scored 1056 runs in 22 games for an average of 62.12 in his barnstorming season. He showed his ability to bat long with a double century in a time cricket game. Impressed by his performances, Kurt Human, the Lions academy head coach, contacted to Brits for a chat about his plans and cricket future.
The conversation ended with an invitation to the academy training group. Brits also featured in three academy games. He debuted with a 78-ball 98 from 78 against University of Johannesburg, followed that up with 167 off 153 against North West Academy before scoring 10 runs in his third outing.
“I enjoyed Scotland so much that I went back for a second year the after my first shot in the academy. I experienced a different environment with a different team but the awesome people never changed,” Brits shared.
The highlight of his second sojourn was a pair of two 150-plus scores in 50-over cricket. One was a 137-ball 183 and an unbeaten 171 from 136 balls for Meigle. Unfortunately, in the second match, Richie Berrington, the Scottish international captain, upstaged him with a ton of his own to lead Clydesdale to victory. And just when he thought things couldn’t get better, the Lions reached out offering him an academy contract.
The Dukes ball moves prodigiously in Scottish conditions compared to the Kookaburra in South African conditions. Brits’ two seasons there helped him to develop skills to counter the moving ball. He also learned how to play with the pink ball.
“The wickets were a touch slower and more spongy. I had to wait longer and play later,” Brits revealed.
By nature, Brits is an attacking opener and sometimes a number three batter who pushes the game forward. The new skills made him a more well-rounded player than he would have been had he not flown to Strathmore and Meigle. That showed in his performances for the Academy and Colts sides over the next two seasons.
Brits topped the runs charts with averages of 50.5 and 73.1 in 2023-24 and 2024-25. It was a no-brainer that took home the Lions Academy/Colts Player of the Year and Batter of the Year awards in both seasons. He also added the Best 50-Over Batter in club cricket award for the 2024-25 season to his collection of accolades.
There is no doubt that Brits is firmly on track to the career he dreamt of as a Grade 3 student. There is no telling how far he will go. Sometimes, all one needs is a different place, different scenery, to inspire and aid in growth, even if that place is cold and damp.
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