On a night like this, the genius and the temptation were plain to see.
A flattened deck, an opposition partnership building, the game in danger of drifting away and an England captain tossing the ball to Jofra Archer, saying: “Go on son, get me a wicket.”
Three times, in fact, Jos Buttler did just that and on all three occasions Archer delivered, making crucial breakthroughs in every spell to finish with figures of six-for-40, his best in an England shirt, bowling the tourists to victory in the Third ODI in Kimberley.
If the joy in Archer’s international comeback in Bloemfontein last week was simply in seeing the man back on the field, then here it was in witnessing an electrifying cricketer back in full flow.
“It’s such a treat, as a captain, to have him there to throw the ball to,” Buttler said afterwards. “He really wants the big moments, he always stands up.”
Having watched Chris Woakes and Reece Topley share the new ball, Archer struck first soon after the powerplay to remove South Africa’s classiest one-day batter and scorer of a hundred in last week’s series opener, Rassie van der Dussen. His return at the midway stage did the trick again, Aiden Markram done trying to take on 90mph pace, then the dangerous David Miller beaten all ends up by it.
The game seemed won until it was not and it was when Heinrich Klaasen and Wayne Parnell’s partnership threatened to take South Africa in sight of the line that both the unique, in England terms, potency of Archer and the challenge facing those tasked with managing him became quite clear.
Because for all the warnings and lessons learnt in having gone without their go-to guy for the best part of two years, just how are England supposed to resist a talent they have been deprived of for so long?
The ball here may have been white and the kits coloured, but it was not difficult to envisage the same scenario a few months down the line: the Ashes, batters set (names perhaps S. Smith or M. Labuschagne), ball doing nothing, spin being belted... and where else could Ben Stokes turn?
Stokes has captained his bowlers brilliantly throughout his tenure thus far, but in Archer he will be dealing with his most destructive - and most delicate - weapon, and in the heat of battle against Australia, with the Urn on the line, resisting the urge to overuse it will be no small feat of restraint. The mistakes of New Zealand in 2019, the tour that effectively broke Archer as he bowled 82 overs in two Tests, cannot be repeated.
There is a degree of responsibility on Archer’s shoulders, too, with regards self-preservation, one a maturing figure seems to appreciate, for all the sight of his frame hurtling over the boundary rope to save one run early in the South African innings had hearts in mouths.
“I knew I could do it,” he said, of bowling a full quota of ten overs twice in six days. “It’s probably the medical team that were panicking!”
“I could’ve bowled another ten, to be honest” - easy now, Jofra - “but I can’t get ahead of myself. This is a small tick but I want to see how I am in April, June, July and September. This is just the start of the road.”
For Buttler and Matthew Mott, the goal is to get Archer to the autumn’s World Cup defence in this kind of form. Just how much control they have over that remains to be seen; Archer has the SA20 to finish in the next week or two, the Indian Premier League season from April and a possible Test summer all before England’s home white-ball series against New Zealand and Ireland, the final part of their World Cup preparation, in September.
Buttler, though, swiftly quashed the suggestion that England might have seen enough already to warrant resting Archer for the next month’s ODIs in Bangladesh.
“Someone who’s been out for so long, when they’re back fit they want to play cricket,” Buttler said. “That’s the big picture for Jofra. He wants to play. When he’s come back and he’s fit, and there’s cricket available, it doesn’t seem to make sense to hold him back.
“He obviously needs to build his overs and his resilience to being able to bowl 10 overs a game and, for English cricket looking ahead, you want to see him playing Test cricket as well, where he will be able to bowl spell after spell.
“You are always going to try to look after him and we will be guided by the medical team and guided by him as to how he’s feeling. But he has been sat on the sidelines for a long time, if he’s fit and available it makes sense for him to be playing cricket.”
