Before he became an ousted prime minister, an incumbent prime minister, or an aspiring prime minister, before he captained the Pakistan national team or was recognized as one of cricket's great all-rounders, Imran Khan was briefly a quintessentially English bowler. You know the type: measured effort, fast-medium, a bit of seam, a bit of swing, and a tendency to lick his lips when the weather is overcast. He learned the game at 18 while at RGS Worcester and honed his skills over four years of six-day-a-week county cricket for Worcestershire. There, a senior pro advised him to stop deluding himself about being a fast bowler if he wanted to succeed in the game. And, being Imran Khan, he excelled at it, taking 68 wickets at 26 in 1973, 60 at 30 in '74, and 46 at 27 in '75. Then he returned to Pakistan, where he discovered that much of what he had learned over four years was of little use on the slow, low, flat pitches at home. "That trip to Pakistan made up my mind," Khan later wrote, "from then on I would be a fast bowler or nothing." He realized, as Osman Samiuddin noted in 'The Unquiet Ones,' that "the way of the English was no way at all" in Pakistan.

There are reasons why many of cricket's great innovations, like reverse swing, the doosra, and wobble-seam bowling, originated in Pakistan. There are also reasons why Pakistan has produced so many electrifying fast bowlers, wicked spinners, and ingenious seamers over the years. The primary reason, on both counts, is the nature of their pitches. These days, England boasts a couple of electric fast bowlers, but one, Mark Wood, is recovering from injury, and the other, Jofra Archer, is just finishing his recovery. They have a wicked spinner in Adil Rashid, who is so disinterested in Test cricket that while England was struggling in Multan, he was promoting his hair replacement therapy on Instagram. They had an ingenious seamer in Jimmy Anderson, but he was finishing a golf pro-am before flying over to do some coaching, having been effectively forced into retirement.

So, here comes Chris Woakes, with Gus Atkinson and Brydon Carse behind him, ready to learn the lessons that Khan and many other English-style bowlers have learned over the years. Before this match, they had played 20 overseas Tests between them, only five of them on the subcontinent, and none in Pakistan. All of those belonged to Woakes. Woakes' record in home conditions is impeccable, but the truth is that it was only last year that it seemed England had given up on the idea of ever picking him to bowl overseas again. Woakes is so English that he's spent most of his adult life politely waiting for the new ball. It took Anderson over a decade to learn how to bowl in such conditions. Woakes, who is wizardly in English conditions, simply hasn't had the chance because he's often been first reserve. He might as well be out there wearing a bowler hat and making small talk about the weather. He's the perfect man for a cool spring morning at Lord's, but it's less clear that he's the one needed on a sweltering afternoon in Multan.

But necessity dictates. So, Woakes, Carse, and Atkinson it is, backed up by Jack Leach, gripping his line and length like a pensioner holding the handrail, and Shoaib Bashir, who still has the eager-to-please air of a kid on work experience. By tea, the five of them looked like they were on the second day of a stag-do in Magaluf, all red faces, wet shirts, and existential regret about the four days ahead. Carse spent his first day of Test cricket huffing and puffing as he hurled down chest-high bouncers at Shan Masood, who kept swaying away and steering the ball to leg. It was like watching a heavyweight trying to start a fight with a dancing tube man on a garage forecourt. Two years ago, England won here, but they had Wood's pace, Anderson's experience, and Ollie Robinson's nous to draw on. With the best will in the world, Woakes, Carse, and Atkinson are the Bootleg Beatles compared to those three. Two years ago, they had Stokes' alchemical leadership, too, with his knack of conjuring match-winning performances out of his players simply by slapping them on the back and putting nine men in catching positions. Who knows? They may yet win this series, but they're going to have to take the long way around to do it and learn a lot about how to bowl along the way.