England and Pakistan trained side by side under a gloomy Headingley sky that seemed to have been dropped in exclusively for the upcoming Test after months of record heat and barely any rainfall. There was a team that had just sacked its coach and gone back to a previous captain. One that had lost its most recent home series, and seven of its last ten Tests. One with the third-worst win percentage this World Test Championship cycle, ahead of only West Indies and Sri Lanka. And there was also Pakistan.
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There will always be a reason to lose a Test, even if it can sometimes feel like Pakistan must be running short of explanations by now. They lost in Australia and South Africa because, well, it's Australia and South Africa. They lost to West Indies because fourth-innings chases are tricky, and West Indies' pace attack in Test cricket is better than it gets credit for. They lost to West Indies at home, meanwhile, because they lost the toss. They lost to Bangladesh home and away, too, and last week they found their reason for it. After all, if you finish bottom of the WTC table, as Pakistan did in the previous cycle, or sit one above, as they do in this one, any Test can be lost.
They arrive in England on the back of that tumult. It has always been a prestige series for Pakistan, a place where success can catapult both reputation and confidence of the side. They are decided underdogs; near the bottom of the rankings, there's hardly any Test series where that's not true.
England, despite the flux they are in, will expect to get past a Pakistan side that has lost 13 of their last 18 Tests, and only this month ended an eight-match losing streak away from home - the longest in their history. One that has been struck by injuries to a number of batters, including one that might keep their reluctantly reinstated captain Babar Azam out of the first Test. Most of all, a group whose mental vulnerability in third and fourth innings with the bat remains as ripe for exploitation as ever.
It can feel like Pakistan must be the team anyone wants to play at the moment, but England in their current state are not far behind. This is a series with a loaded deck, because victory will mean very different things to these sides. An England win might be a gentle, encouraging sign for the new era being soft-launched this series ahead of Stephen Fleming's official coaching appointment later this year. One that will be gently toasted and quickly moved on from.
A Pakistan win, though, would see this visiting group do something almost unique in the modern era. Their all three Test series wins in this country have come between 1987 and 1996, a time when they spat out a conveyor belt of some of their greatest Test cricketers. Since 2017, by contrast, Pakistan have - Zimbabwe excluded - failed to win a single Test series outside Asia. Since their win in England in 1996, they have won just three.
To make that four, all they need to do is beat a side currently without a full-time coach and a clear identity, one that sits above them in the WTC standings only because they drew one of their Tests. There could not be a clearer opportunity to write their name into history, or a more achievable path to it.
In Mohammad Abbas, Pakistan have the sort of bowler you'd conjure out of a petri dish if controlling for conditions in England. On an overcast day in Headingley, with rain lashing down in the afternoon, washing away all signs of the drought and heatwave as the temperature dipped into the low teens, Abbas appeared especially bubbly at the press conference. These are the conditions, for the most part, in which Abbas has taken over 300 wickets in county cricket. He will take the new ball against an England batting line-up that misses Jacob Bethell, and features new opener Emilio Gay and experimental number three Jordan Cox.
Should the drier weather further south hold up, Lord's and Edgbaston will host the remaining two Tests. It could conceivably bring spinners into the game more than is usually the case. Pakistan have brought two along for the tour, while England are likely to rely on Dan Lawrence's part-time slow bowling as their primary source of spin. It was those conditions in which Pakistan coasted to victory in their warm-up game against a select XI, albeit one featuring a modest bowling attack. Saud Shakeel, a master of negotiating flat, dry pitches but someone who struggles against the rising or moving ball, scored an unbeaten hundred and was keen to emphasise how at home Pakistan felt.
Of course, in Pakistan's current state, these could all end up being obscure asides on a tour where just enough goes wrong for things to fall apart. Given Pakistan's fragility, it won't take much, and England do still have a step-up in the batting quality that Pakistan cannot realistically match. Joe Root exists on a level of his own, and Harry Brook averages over 84 against Pakistan. Pakistan's capacity to absorb pressure or consolidate winning positions is almost non-existent at this point, and there are few members of this unit who know how to win Test matches under pressure.
There are, as there always will be, many reasons why they might go on to lose the three Test matches that follow. But as far as opportunities for history-making go, Pakistan would do well to recognise that one stares them in the face over the next few weeks; it is unlikely to come around again anytime soon.