There are a few examples of modern sportsmen who have defied the inevitability of age .Sachin Tendulkar played his final and 200th Test match for India at 40. Italian football demigod Gianluigi Buffon turned 38 this year and has been playing in Serie A since 1995. Francesco Totti turns 40 in September and has just signed on for a final year at his only club, AS Roma. The two Italian footballers enjoyed glittering careers for club and country. They remain as passionate about it as ever, too. Indeed, it is easier when you're winning.Tahir, 37, is a rare South African cricketer; he plays with a flair that belies the many disappointments he has had to endure. He plays as if he has never been labelled, along with his teammates, a choker, as if his figures of 0/260 against Australia in Adelaide four years ago were not the most runs conceded without a wicket by any bowler in the history of the format. He plays with a freedom rare in a team that often appears saddled by expectations and the memory of past failures.Whereas Buffon, who has seven Serie A winners' medals, two Uefa Champions League runners-up awards, three Coppa Italias, six Italian Super Cups and a World Cup with Italy, can be forgiven for floating about until he decides to retire, Pakistan-born Tahir believes he can still be better, that he can still deliver victories.His seven wickets for 45 runs in Wednesday's crushing victory over the Windies at St Kitts is the best return by a South African bowler in one-day internationals. And that's for a country that boasts Brian McMillan, Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener, Makhaya Ntini, Dale Steyn and Morné Morkel in its fast-bowling history. Before this, the only five-wicket hauls by South African spinners were by Nicky Boje, 5/21 against Australia; and Tahir himself, 5/45 against the Windies at last year's World Cup.Tahir's figures are bettered only by Shahid Afridi's 7/12 and Muttiah Muralitharan's 7/30 as the best figures by spinners in ODIs. He is the fastest to reach 100 wickets (58 ODIs) for South Africa.He shared nine of the 10 wickets against the Windies with his assumed heir, Tabraiz Shamsi, 26. Tahir has shown the capacity to still learn - even at his advanced cricketing age - and if Shamsi is to take the main spinner's role come the 2019 tournament, when he will be a mature 29 and Tahir presumably retired, he must display similar desire and passion to improve. This week was a rare opportunity, too, for South Africans to witness two wrist spinners in tandem in an international. It is also a chance for a glimpse of a future in which spinners are not just a nice-to-have option, but a key element in an arsenal that is otherwise predictable...