Pressure will be on inexperienced bowling lineup as tourists aim to repeat triumph of 2022

Last month as much rain fell on Bedfordshire as Multan has in a year. The city gets about 2mm in an average October, about an eighth of what fell in London on Wednesday. On the outskirts, such as the area around the cricket ground, donkeys and oxen haul carts and camels hide under trees from the searing afternoon sun.

There is nothing on the roads more eye-catching than the tractors and lorries, many of which are decorated with intricate and colourful paintwork and hung with shiny baubles. It is a hot, dry city, a place of working vehicles and beasts of burden, where it seems no characteristics are as important as stamina and reliability.