Tazmin Brits never intended to become the face of South African cricket. When she first picked up a bat in her 20s - her javelin career done for after a horrific car crash ahead of London Olympics - it was more a means of socialising than a determined bid for international glory. Now, at an all-time peak of an unlikely sporting career, the South African has etched her name in an elite bracket of performers globally - quietly, persistently and unapologetically on her own terms.

Yet, Brits finds herself navigating the paradox of success and invisibility.

For a career once deemed fit for T20s only, Brits has had a remarkable 18 months in ODI cricket. She's become the quickest to reach seven centuries - surpassing Meg Lanning - with five of those coming in 2025 alone, eclipsing Smriti Mandhana's tally. At one point, she even threatened to equal Amy Sattherwaite's record of four consecutive hundreds but the law of averages caught up, as she suspected it would. Her latest hundred to set up South Africa's first points in the 2025 World Cup has catapulted her from obscurity to fourth in the ICC ODI rankings. There's a hint of quiet satisfaction as she recalls the steep climb, but layered beneath is a deeper struggle - feeling peripheral despite being in the spotlight.

"I think I'm still fighting to be seen, to be honest," Brits tells Cricbuzz of that nagging thought. "I feel if I was seen, I would get maybe more opportunities in leagues. I'm not one for stats but... I'm sixth [at the time of this interview] in the world now in ODIs whereas just a few months ago, I was something like 200-odd. So I ask myself often, what more do I need to do to get into leagues? And what more do I need to do to be seen in that sense? Then I just tell myself if God doesn't open the door, then it's clearly not my door to be opened. So I just have faith and I try and be patient with that."

Brits's quiet rebellion is evident both in how she plays the game and how she celebrates success. Her maiden ODI fifty came two years and 20 innings into her career, and the Proteas opener recalls how Laura Wolvaardt calmed her emotions in the middle when she was about to cry. In the very next game, she followed it up with her maiden century. With a muted finger-to-the-lip celebration and a hand-written '100' sign held aloft, she had let her bat, and resilience, do the talking.

Turning the outside noise into fuel that lifts her performance on the field is her way of staying focussed and thriving under pressure.

"I feed off things like this," Brits says. "For a lot of people, when you score 100, then you're a hero and then the next game, if you score zero, you shouldn't be playing cricket. You should get a second job.

"People are very critical in general. I don't think people, and it's even in the environment that I'm in, I don't think people really know me. Like, I'm actually a very soft-hearted person. I'm actually a very lovable person. I'm sensitive. But I don't think people take time to get to know us as humans. They're quick to judge you on maybe your performance instead of your character. I'm very big on being a better human. I'd rather be a good human and remembered for that than for making 171 runs."

Cricket, by default, judges its heroes through numbers and stats. Rarely are they understood or valued as people. Just before her career-best 171 against Pakistan came another century - the second in her streak of three. For a long stretch in the middle of that innings, Brits struggled hard with "nothing coming off".

But she had a job to do for South Africa, rebuilding the chase of 256 after they were reduced to 43/2 inside the PowerPlay. She did that with aplomb, grinding it out despite her struggles which will hide behind the triple-digit figure against her name now. The story was in the celebration thereafter - mimicking Arsenal's Viktor Gyokeres's Bane-inspired mask gesture - that was also her shield.