It was the wildest innings ever played by an England opening batsman. Data does not extend to the dawn of Test cricket in 1877 but we can be certain that WG Grace, Jack Hobbs, Len Hutton, Geoffrey Boycott, Alastair Cook and their opening partners never played – between the whole lot of them in their entire careers – so many wild hacks as Dan Lawrence in his run-a-ball innings of 35.

“A hard watch at times,” Cook commented on Test Match Special with some feeling. Lawrence’s innings, more than any other aspect of their gung-ho cricket, encapsulated the hyper-aggression which England brought into this game, confident of turning their summer into a 6-0 sweep.

Cook had watched Lawrence grow at Chelmsford from the time he scored 161 against Surrey at the Oval, aged 17, in his second first-class match. Lawrence became “The Kid” in Essex’s side; such is his keenness, his obsession with batting, you can understand that avuncular feeling of older team-mates. He had no hinterland in Chingford, as son of the club groundsman; cricket is what he knows.

Most observers too probably felt like Cook: that Lawrence departed so far from the norms of opening a Test innings that the way he played was unforgivable as well as unprecedented – that Lawrence did not simply run towards the danger, as Brendon McCullum urges his players to do, but threw himself upon the pyre. He was more dashing even than Ben Duckett, more skittish even than Ollie Pope at the start of an innings away from the Oval.

Still, we have to rationalise this wildest of innings until the truth emerges after this match. We could assume along these lines: One, Lawrence was told before this match, or even this series, that he was guaranteed a place in England’s Test party to Pakistan next month, however he fared as an emergency opener in place of Zak Crawley. Two, This regime will stand by that promise. Three, Lawrence might never be asked to open an England Test innings again but he will return to being first in line as a replacement in the middle order if injury or illness strikes in Pakistan.