Harry Brook is the perfect example. The last tour of Pakistan was when he announced himself in Test cricket, with three hundreds, and everyone just went “wow”. Over time, people work out how to bowl at even the best players and at the Oval, Sri Lanka went wide outside off stump. He got frustrated, pretended to mark his guard a metre outside off-stump, then got out next ball.

Brook should not be at all surprised if Pakistan go straight to that tactic when he comes in. Gillespie will have done his research, and the two areas you can frustrate Brook are wide outside off and bouncing him. Why would you bowl into his arc? If you are playing against free-scoring egos like that, the best tactic is to take the ball away from their dateline, and get them chasing.

Brook should learn fast, because he is that good. He is a generational player. Even batsmen that good cannot have it their own way all the time. I am sure there will be balls where he will dance across, but my advice would be to just leave a few balls. That can be the attacking option, because it will not take long for them to start bowling straight again, because they are not getting him out. Once it comes straighter, it is back in his eyeline.

Brook scored a brilliant hundred at Trent Bridge, but overall it was a bit of a wasteful Test summer for him. At times, to be honest, he looked a bit bored. Every innings looked like he was chasing Gilbert Jessop’s record for England’s fastest hundred!

No doubt Brook is captain-in-waiting

Since then, though, I think we have seen another step in his development with his ODI captaincy against Australia. For my mind, there is absolutely no doubt that he is England’s captain-in-waiting across whatever formats he can manage. He looked a total natural against Australia. You could see that players wanted to follow him, he was very calm, and that he was thinking outside the box, and not captaining by the manual. 

Most importantly, his batting went up another level, and he was not overburdened by the job. That was brilliant to see, and I fully expect him to have another great series against Pakistan.

Speaking of captaincy, England’s job will be made much harder by Ben Stokes’s absence for the first Test. Whether he can play any part in the series remains to be seen. His side-balancing bowling and tactical acumen will both be missed. He is the best in the world, along with Rohit Sharma, and psyches batsmen out with fields that they have never seen before. Certainly his captaincy was a big reason England won 3-0 in 2022, so Ollie Pope will have even bigger shoes to fill than he did against Sri Lanka.

Without Stokes, there will be even more strain on a young attack, with none of the seamers who thrived in 2022 there this time. Pakistan have one great player in Babar Azam, who has struggled for form in recent times, and some other decent batsmen, but it is not an order that strikes fear into you. It will be a great test for the likes of Gus Atkinson, who did so well this summer, and debutant Brydon Carse.

Chris Woakes’s importance rises without Stokes, too. He has not played outside England for two years, and has a record that is as horrible away as it is brilliant at home. With his experience and quality batting at No 8 he has loads to offer, but this tour, and New Zealand before Christmas, will tell us if Woakes can make it on to the Ashes next winter.