Jofra Archer showed the world he is officially back with the sixiest of performances to blow South Africa away and take England to victory.
Archer finished with 6-40, his best figures in an England shirt in any format as he turned up the pace and the heat on the Proteas to help secure a 59-run win and end a five match losing streak.
This is what Archer and England have waited so long for him to be able to do again. This is what all the surgeries, physio sessions, and gym sessions have been about. And this is what cricket fans the world over have been desperate to watch once more.
Rest assured it is still utterly electric seeing him in full flow just metres away. Regularly topping 90 mph with great skill and accuracy, Archer was the stuff of South African nightmares as darkness fell in Kimberley as he ripped out the heart of their batting lineup.
And when Heinrich Klaasen threatened to steal the game away with a bold and brutal innings of 80 from 62 balls, who else did England ask to wrestle the game back but Archer.
“It’s nice for us to finish with a win,” said skipper Jos Buttler. “I think we’ve made some really good strides. Guys getting hundreds and with the ball there are some brilliant things. Jofra Archer’s performance was fantastic and probably deserving of player of the match.”
With Adil Rashid spinning a web at the other end to take 3-68, and back up Buttler’s 11th ODI hundred it was as if we were back in 2019 and England’s superstars were playing their greatest hits.
Joining the band this time is Dawid Malan, who stroked his 3rd ODI hundred in just his 15th match to help Buttler rescue what had been a perilous situation at the start of the game. The pair hit an England record 232 for the 4th wicket to edge out the previous best of 226 between Andrew Strauss and Andrew Flintoff, and completely turn the game on its head.
The regularly impressive Lungi Ngidi had taken advantage of the early movement to remove Jason Roy, Ben Duckett and Harry Brook for a total of seven runs between them. At 14-3 England found themselves in a big hole, although perhaps still not as big as the hole Kimberley is famous for.
It required a sound technique, an experienced temperament and a few strokes in the locker to put the pressure back on the bowlers. In Malan and Buttler England were lucky enough to have two batters capable of meeting all those requirements and it is no coincidence that they are the only two Englishmen to have scored hundreds in all three formats of international cricket.
They both got to three figures within an over of each other with Buttler going a little further with his 131 topping Malan’s 118, and earning him the player-of-the-match and series gongs.
As a team England hopped from 20-3 after 10 overs, skipped to 129-3 after 30 and jumped to 347-7 from their 50, a quite remarkable turnaround. And thanks to Archer one that proved to be more than enough.
