"For sure, he's put me under a bit of pressure. He's a fantastic player who had a fantastic game, but it's about concentrating on the team," Kane said. And concentrate on the team he did, rescuing his side from another deluge of pessimism.
The bundle that formed on top of Kane when he scored his first World Cup goal showed how much this England side want their captain to shine in Russia. Respect is part of it but self-interest plays a bigger role.
He is the only Prince Harry in Russia from London and they need him to be clinical. He is so much better scoring from corners than taking them. Excitement is one thing, composure entirely another. And the first can wreck the second.
The first half of this Group G fixture was a lesson in how hope frays when good approach leads only to wasteful finishing. In the haze of half a dozen missed opportunities, Kane's tap-in stood out as a statement to his team.
Nice guys engage with their fans and pass the ball sweetly - but winners stick it in the net. Tunisia knew it too, which is why Ferjani Sassi, who scored their equaliser from the penalty spot, tackled Kane around the waist from a corner kick (without sanction from the referee).
There were enough defensive tremors and spurned chances in this performance to douse some of the new-dawn rhetoric that accompanied England into the former Stalingrad. One sideshow, however, has run its course. Kane has scored on the world stage, at 24, in his 25th international appearance, and two years after he short-circuited at Euro 2016.
The wrestling to the turf of England's captain in both halves can be taken as proof of how defences around the world fear him. It also pointed to football's inability to come up with a clear policy on grappling in the penalty box.
The first incident, when Kane was taken down Twickenham-style, was preceded by a push in the back by John Stones on a Tunisian defender, so there was some parity of offending. Across the game, though, Kane will have felt he was playing the oval ball code as well as the round one.
These unpunished transgressions light up social media and start tremendous bunfights. The same can be said of the penalty awarded against Kyle Walker, whose arm was high and swinging - an error on the England defender's part. Only very rarely, however, can a team afford to wallow in a sense of injustice.
The bigger truth is that England made hard work of their opening game by wasting too many chances and losing their accuracy and rhythm when events turned against them. This loss of authority and composure is a bug in the system far more dangerous than those midges.
It would be wrong to lurch from the lovey-doveyness of the last two weeks straight to excessive criticism. Brazil and Argentina drew their opening fixtures against lesser opposition, and Germany lost to Mexico. England have no credit to draw from in the bank of confidence.
Kane's late winner was campaign-saving. A day earlier, he said he wanted to "get out there and show the world what I've got". And he did.
As soon as the domestic season finished, English football's gaze fell on him. The captaincy put another breeze block in his backpack. There was a kind of cruel sport at play but one that comes with the territory.
Of England's fans, he said: "We want to fight for them, win for them. That's what we play football for."
He delivered on this, too, when several England players were finding it hard to deliver on the promise.
Often in tournaments, a country deficient in some respects finds a great player to hang its hat on. Kane may yet be that player.
Certainly his England teammates can be sure now that their modest but tough talisman knows how to get them out of trouble, a vital skill at this level. The important bit is that England won and can face Panama hopeful of progressing beyond the group stage. But twinkling in that story is a moment of happiness and redemption for a superb striker who, two years ago, looked lost in France. He has turned up in Russia all right.
