Winners: Archers leads his team-mates off the field
(Picture: Getty Images)One way or another, this tour always seemed set to centre around Jofra Archer — and so it proved.
The pace bowler bookended the series with his most expensive ODI figures on his comeback from injury, then his best-ever in an England shirt to single-handedly assure victory in yesterday's third match here.
"His performance was outstanding," captain Jos Buttler said of Archer's six for 40, which included crucial breakthroughs in all three of his spells, as England beat South Africa by 59 runs. "Every time you turned to him to try and take a wicket, he did that."
Archer's performance ends the tour on a high note, not simply for halting a slide of five straight ODI defeats, but also for the sense that, despite a 2-1 series loss, things are at least moving in the right direction less than nine months out from the World Cup; a most crucial piece of the puzzle falling back into place, providing, of course, he can stay fit.
Even in defeat in the first two matches, the former thanks to a duffed chase and the latter due to a very good one from the Proteas, Buttler had highlighted the positives: Olly Stone's middle-over emergence, Jason Roy's hundred, Harry Brook's knock of 80 in Bloemfontein. He admitted, though, that there is no substitute for winning.
"We were deserving of a victory in this series," Buttler (right, in action yesterday) added. "If I look back, bar 10 or 15 overs of the chase in the First ODI, I think we've played really well.
"We've played some brilliant cricket and we should be disappointed that we didn't win the series, but in terms of things you're looking to get together and build ahead of a World Cup, I think we ticked a lot of boxes."
Even shy of full strength, England's batting remains capable of winning any game from just about any position, as shown in the recovery from 14 for three to post 346 yesterday, steered by a sensational 236-run partnership between Dawid Malan and Buttler, the player of the series.
Having followed his opening-night century with successive failures, the jury remains out on Roy's supposed return to form, and the opener must kick-on in Bangladesh next month.
That England's three hundreds across the series all came from senior figures, however, served as a reminder that for all their theoretical white-ball depth, there is no match for the class, experience and, perhaps, even fear factor brought by those who have been there and done it before, particularly in a format the contenders seldom play.
Brook will surely go to India, but Ben Duckett did not seize his chance here, while Phil Salt did not get one. The returns of world champions Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root and possibly even Ben Stokes will make England's strong suit stronger by the time of their defence.
There is more concern in England's bowling department, where Mark Wood is the only high-profile absentee. Sam Curran found ways to stay in the game and Adil Rashid was a reliable wicket-taking option, if sometimes an expensive one, but England's more conventional new-ball bowlers struggled to make an impact on flat pitches. Chris Woakes, Reece Topley and David Willey, who only played once, finished with combined figures of one for 271 from 36 overs. In fairness, South Africa won all three tosses and exploited the only periods where conditions proved notably helpful to seamers, at the start of the second and third games.
England were this morning set to announce a hugely-depleted squad for the Bangladesh ODIs, with the Test series in New Zealand ruling out Brook, Duckett, Stone and Root, while several senior players on the fringes, such as Alex Hales and David Willey, have made themselves unavailable in favour of lucrative franchise gigs.
Even more so than this series, that tour is likely to be about individuals staking claims, rather than the collective moulding of a side ready to rule the world again.
Ultimately, this is a team that, through their own performances and for being handicapped by the schedule, have earned the right to be judged on tournament results. The verdict will not be final until India in the autumn.
'Outstanding': Jofra Archer leads off the England team after his six-wicket haul helped stop the ODI rot following five straight defeats in the format
