AUS vs SA | ‘I believe God blessed me with talent to play aggressively,’ Brevis after his stunning century

‌South Africa levelled the three-match T20I series against Australia with a 53-run win in the second game in Darwin on Tuesday. Young Batter Dewald Brevis top-scored in the game with a swashbuckling innings, notching up his maiden century, to power the visitors to a formidable total of 218/7. His unbeaten innings of 125 off 56 balls, which consisted of 12 fours and eight sixes, was laden with milestones.

The Chennai Super Kings batter became the youngest South African to score a T20I hundred and was also the second-fastest century, behind David Miller, by a Protean batter in T20Is. His tally was also the highest individual score by a South African batter in the shortest format and the highest against the Aussies by any batter in this format.

"That's just my natural way of hitting," he said during the press conference after the match. "I've hit thousands of balls and I just want to go out there, enjoy it and have fun and just watch it, and then if it's there, it happens. I don't try to do it, I'm just trying to be myself and have fun and watch the ball, and then it happens."

The middle-order batter walked into the middle in a tricky situation with the side placed at 44/2 in the fifth over, and soon lost another batter in Lhuan-dre Pretorius with the score reading 57. However, Brevis never backed down from playing his shots as he changed the course of the game with a 126-run partnership for the fourth wicket with Tristan Stubbs. He played the aggressor in this stand, amassing 91 runs in just 35 balls, and his overall strike rate during his unbeaten knock stood at 223.21.

"I believe God blessed me with a talent to play like that, to play aggressively. Last year, on 28 December, I made that commitment. I got a few people, they know who they are, who I trust, and the main thing was just to be the original Dewald and to be on that side of it and every ball, wherever it is, to watch it and to hit it."

"I've always believed that this is where I need to be and where I will be, so I never had any doubt or anything," he said. "It's all about cricket, how things work out. It is a roller coaster, you have your ups, you have your downs, but I have never doubted myself."

Brevis made a comeback to the national side in the T20I Tri-Series in Zimbabwe after spending close to two years on the sidelines. He was dropped after his first two games against Australia in Durban in September 2023, and he played a statement innings against the same side on Tuesday. The young batter also believes that this innings is the start of many more memorable knocks to come.

"I would have loved to be here earlier, but that's all a part of your journey, and that's what makes you stronger. That's why I'm here now," he said. "It's a reason for how I'm playing now. I had to make all those mistakes that all of the senior players actually warned me I would make. They told me to watch out for this, do this, do that, and then I did exactly the opposite, so it's important to go through that and to be able to be here now."

"This is just the start, if I could say it like that," he said. "I just want to keep working hard, do the same things, and the next match is the next match. So this 100, I can enjoy it now, think a bit about it, watch it maybe, but then when the next match comes, it's completely a new match and anything can happen."