Sisanda Magala had to wait and wait and wait some more. 

And while he waited, 17 overs went by and England’s openers plundered 123 runs. They were cruising to victory. “I was fifth change, but it is what it is,” Magala, who normally opens the bowling, said about that wait. 

Temba Bavuma turned to him in the 18th over and he stemmed the tide somewhat conceding just three runs. In his next over he dismissed Dawid Malan with a short ball that cramped the left-hander for room forcing a miscued pull that was top edged allowing Bavuma to take an easy catch at mid-off. 

England lost two more wickets in the next 11 balls and from 146/0 they fell to 152/3. “That’s where the game changed for us,” said Bavuma. His side eventually ran away victors by 27 runs in the first ODI in Bloemfontein.

The bouncer worked a treat just as it had for Sam Curran earlier in the afternoon. After Malan, Moeen Ali, David Willey and Jofra Archer were also all dismissed by balls that bounced appreciably off what was otherwise a docile surface.

“The pitch was really up and down, even in our first innings the ball was squatting and some had steep bounce,” said Magala, who picked up 3/46 in nine overs. “We saw (the bouncer) as a dot ball and a wicket-taking option. We were planning on using that a lot and fortunately all the balls that went in the air went to a guy. On another day that wouldn't have happened it would have gone for six or found gaps, but today it worked.”

Friday’s performance might be viewed as part of a broader redemptive arc for Magala, who has suffered under the spotlight caused by him being called out for failing to adhere to Cricket South Africa’s fitness targets. 

He was omitted from the squad for the limited overs series against Bangladesh last season, with CSA publicly stating he’d failed to complete a two-kilometre time trial in under eight minutes and 30 seconds and this season he was banned from his provincial team, the DP World Lions, for the same thing during the T20 Challenge. 

Regardless of his fitness, however, Magala has always been able to take wickets. He has finished as the leading wicket-taker in the domestic One-Day Cup in each of the last two seasons, helping the Lions win that competition on both occasions.

“It is important to be yourself whatever environment you are in and an environment that allows people to grow and be able to perform while being themselves, will help the team especially in the long run,” he said.

He explained that he was grateful for the support of the Lions technical analyst Prasanna Agoram — who performed the same role with the Proteas previously — and his provincial teammate, Malusi Siboto. “He knows me inside out, I learn a lot from him, he’s the one I bounce ideas off of to see how we can improve.”

His match-turning performance will do plenty for the confidence of a player who is a popular presence in the dressing room both domestically and with the national team. 

Bavuma obviously delighted in his side’s stunning come back, but said the same measured questions would be asked of the players in the postgame debrief. “We are trying to shift our focus from being not just on the result but how we go about our cricket,” he said. 

The Proteas scored 298/7 after choosing to bat first with Rassie van der Dussen scoring 111. Bavuma said he felt the team should have scored over 300, but was happy with Van der Dussen and David Miller’s — who made 53 — approach.  

“The conversations we are going to have is: ‘Are we happy about the way we went about our business, especially with the bat? If we are happy, I’m happy. If not, then we must have more  conversations.”