Harry Brook on England's T20 defeat to South Africa and decision to pull Jofra Archer from line-up

The England fast bowler, who enjoyed a four-wicket burst in the record ODI victory against South Africa on Sunday, was pulled from the hosts’ line-up late on Wednesday once rain reduced the game to a total of 12.5 overs.

England lost by 14 runs on the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method at a soggy Sophia Gardens in Cardiff after a run chase of only five overs. Rain in the Welsh capital had cut the contest by more than half with the match delayed until 8.50pm – two hours and 20 minutes after the scheduled start.

The Proteas had reached 97-5 from 7.5 overs before a short shower ended their innings prematurely, leaving England a tough revised victory of 69 from 30 balls under DLS calculations.

England had named their XI on Tuesday but made a late change because of the wet conditions. Luke Wood was brought in to replace Archer and took two wickets at the top of the order.

Brook justified the decision in view of the hectic schedule lying ahead of England’s prized bowler in the coming months, the standout being this winter’s Ashes Down Under.

He also cited the recent broken angle suffered recently by Adam Hose while fielding in The Hundred as another reason to not risk playing a bowler who has only returned to the international stage this summer after more than three years away.

“It would have been stupid to play him (Archer) with the amount of cricket we’ve got coming up,” said Keighley-born Brook (inset).

“If he’d have gone out in the boundary and done what Adam Hose did in The Hundred and broken his leg or whatever, that would have been a shambles.”

On the game itself, Brook – whose team have a chance to avenge their midweek defeat at Old Trafford tonight – labelled the event a “shambles”.

“You can’t take much from that,” added Brook. “There was so much going on. They got nine overs, we got five overs.

“But you can’t take much from it and it wasn’t worth it. It was a long, long day. I don’t think we need to make any excuses up. It was a bit of a shambles really, wasn’t it?

“We probably didn’t execute as well as we should have done with bat and ball. It’s bloody hard when you only bat for five overs.

“I thought we could have chased whatever they got off nine overs. I don’t know how the DLS works for the second half. We bowled nicely, they hit a couple of sixes, but that’s how T20 cricket works.”

Despite the contest being shortened again when England went into bat, South Africa seamers Marco Jansen and Corbin Bosch were allowed to bowl two overs each rather than five bowlers having one over apiece.

Brook said: “I would’ve thought that every bowler would have had to bowl one over.

"But these are the rules that we get given, and we’ve just got to play our best cricket.”