'I'm here now' - Brevis makes a statement as the 'original Dewald'

There's no secret to Dewald Brevis' big-hitting except perhaps a divine one if you believe the man himself, after his record-breaking antics in the second T20I against Australia in Darwin.

Brevis scored 125*, which is the highest by a South African in T20Is and he became the youngest South African centurion in the format. He also put on one of the best examples of clean stroke-play down the ground. Brevis hit more than half his runs in the "V", including six of his eight sixes, in what his captain Aiden Markram told the post-match broadcast was a "freakish display" of talent that Brevis himself can't really explain.

"That's just my natural way of hitting," he said at the press conference afterwards. "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."

But that was only after he made a commitment to himself a little more than eight months ago. "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."

The words "be myself," and "original Dewald," are the most notable because when Brevis first made his name it was actually by a nickname: Baby AB. He earned that moniker around the same time as he finished as the leading run-scorer in the 2022 under-19 World Cup and embraced it. AB de Villiers, after whom Brevis was named, is still a role model to him but walking around as his successor weighed heavily on Brevis. Only five runs came from his first T20Is, in 2023, and he was sent back to the domestic set-up to grow his game and, as it turns out, his own name.

Since then Brevis has torn up record books at home and is also the holder of the country's highest score in domestic T20s: 162. Last summer, he was a key figure in MICT's run to the SA20 title and also the second-highest run-scorer in both the first-class and List A competitions. Being dropped turned out to be just the opportunity he needed to prove himself.

"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 ever doubted myself."

But did he wish it could have happened as quickly as everyone thought it would? "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 basically did exactly the opposite, so it's important to go through that and to be able to be here now."

Some of those mistakes included buying into the hype of a label he didn't ask for; others were going too hard too early and the most recent of them was not knowing whose record he broke as the holder South Africa's highest individual score in T20Is. "It's Jacques Kallis," he said confidently, before being told it is actually Faf du Plessis.

"So I got it wrong," he laughed. "I didn't know, but it's obviously a privilege and an honour and there's not a lot of words, I'm just extremely grateful and excited for what lies ahead."

And already he has promised it will be plenty as he hinted this innings was just a taster of what's to come. "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."