So you see, politicians in the end run cricket in Pakistan. I had that pointed out to me that day. It is unlikely Ben Stokes will have to meet the Pakistan prime minister and get involved in tense negotiations to save the Test series. The game and the world has changed so much since those days.

The hotels will be better, the food more familiar, safer, and they even have their own chef paid for by the ECB, travelling with them now. We had to be very very careful with the food. We lived on things like sandwiches, eggs, chocolate, bananas, biscuits and yoghurt. We always took food from the hotels and its preparation would be supervised by those not playing. We never ate at the cricket grounds.

England will have a backroom team of 15: three full-time coaches, plus Jimmy Anderson as a ‘coach consultant’, a security manager, massage therapist, doctor, performance analyst, physio. You name it, they have got it. They have only picked 16 players – almost one backroom staff for every cricketer.

We had a backroom of three: manager Ken Barrington, physio and assistant manager Bernard Thomas and scorer Geoffrey Saulez. We had no coaches, no media officers or a massage therapist.

That tour in 1977-78 was also played on awful pitches that produced slow, boring cricket and a 0-0 result. The pitches this time will be much better.