It was only a 67-run stand for the sixth wicket on a truncated day one at Lord's. But the partnership between Jordan Cox and Jamie Smith, bridging a shaky top- and lower-order at Lord's on day one of this second Test against Pakistan, felt like the entanglement of distinct timelines within English Test cricket.
On the December 2022 tour of New Zealand, with Smith on paternity leave ahead of the birth of his first child, Cox was given the go-ahead as England's wicketkeeper-batter for all three Tests. Disaster struck on the morning of the final day of the warm-up match in Queenstown, when Cox suffered a blow in the nets which broke his right thumb.
Ruled out of the series and with immediate re-jigging required, Ollie Pope - ever the team man - took the gloves, relinquishing his spot at No.3 to a 21-year old Jacob Bethell. By the Ashes Boxing Day Test a year later, Bethell had permanently unseated Pope from his former role.
Six months on, a knee injury for Bethell has given Cox a second chance, but this time at No.3, rather than with the gloves. After finally making his debut in the chaotic second New Zealand Test at the Kia Oval - one of four changes off the back of, not just the ECB standing down Ben Stokes and Gus Atkinson after their Rex Room jaunt, but also the birth of Smith's second child - Cox has followed a composed 73 at Headingley with a defiant 55 to thwart the best efforts of Mohammads Abbas and Ali.
It was after Dan Lawrence was dismissed two balls into the 32nd over that Cox and Smith finally met out in the middle in this format. Cox was 42 off 78 at the time, eventually reaching a second consecutive half-century 10 deliveries later with back-to-back of swipes to the leg-side off Ali Usman.
By the time Cox was dismissed, 10 overs but just 13 runs later, Smith had already cracked on to his own half-century. However, this was not a case of a first-drop blocker dropping anchor while a No.7 batter counter-attacked, but two players fully engrossed in the challenge of seaming conditions under heavy skies.
When Smith was dismissed for 61, England were 222 for 7. Even with a late collapse to 248 for 9, it is a respectable score considering the experienced trio of Joe Root, Harry Brook and Ben Duckett had all been seen off by the start of the 18th over.
Though this was the third time Smith had been out in the sixties in his last 11 innings - 60 against Australia at Adelaide, 60 against New Zealand, both in the second innings and in defeats - this first-innings effort seemed more assured. He had endured some previous struggles when batting with the tail, but these were parked given that, within the context of the day itself, Smith was this time batting in Cox's slipstream.
"I've spent a decent amount of time with Jordan," Smith said of a man one year his junior, after their first partnership in Tests. "Growing up in and around the same age groups, playing against each other... and then England Under-19s and things like that.
"He's very calm and assured at the crease and he definitely oozes confidence and class in the way he goes about it.
"I think there's different ways to go about an innings on that sort of wicket; you either take it on, or you can sit in and ride the conditions a little bit, and I think he did that superbly well."
The impact Cox is threatening in this format has not dissimilar to that of Brook. And it goes beyond the high hands that allows both men to hit quicks and spinners off length.
Both are regarded by those across the domestic game, and the England management, as generational talents. And, by proxy, both are disruptors that offer the kind of competition for places within a dressing-room that promotes necessary evolution.
Brook's arrival in the Test team, though eventually made simpler by Jonny Bairstow's horrible leg break at the end of the 2022 season, eventually brought its own collateral. In particular Ben Foakes, who had been bumped out of the XI by the following summer. Foakes himself did little wrong in that period, but Brook's impact in Pakistan and New Zealand had simply been stunning.
Similarly, Cox's weight of runs for Essex - 1,772 at 68.15, including eight centuries, since moving from Kent for the start of the 2024 season - has led to this point. Only two innings in, he is on the verge of giving selectors a good problem to solve.
Though Stephen Fleming continues to watch on from afar with Marcus Trescothick in interim charge, England will want to pick their best batters and then decide on the order, as they did eventually with Bethell at three. And they will be wary of dallying on that decision once again, having only decided to pull the cord on Pope after the Ashes had been lost.
With a South Africa tour to come, Fleming's first in charge, and Bethell returning to fitness, a decision will need to be made on how exactly Cox fits into this team. Therein lies the problem for those currently sitting alongside him in that home dressing-room.
Emilio Gay's leg-side dismissal for 8 raises the temperature on his spot. He should get the rest of this series, but he needs a big score of note in the remaining three innings to at least book a spot to South Africa. It is particularly unfortunate for Gay that the highest proportion of Cox's 104 first-class innings (30) have already come as an opener.
Dan Lawrence's unconvincing 17 - including Shan Masood dropping him easily on 10 - means No.6 remains an option for Cox. Particularly on nibbling tracks like this one, where a four-man seam attack can get the job done, supplemented by odds-and-ends spin from Bethell and Root.
Prior to this Thursday, before they had vibed so well, you could have also have tossed Smith into that mix. Though he is highly regarded within the set-up, and rightly so, Smith was still averaging 21.84 from 20 innings coming into this Test. There's no doubt he'd have recognised the threat that Cox, himself an accomplished batter-keeper, was already posing to his position.
Cox spoke last week of being willing to bat anywhere and fulfill any role England ask of him. And it is not too much of a stretch to suggest that his debut, at No. 7 but without the gloves, had been engineered to avoid an awkward situation upon Smith's return.
Well, a couple of months later, Cox is bringing that awkwardness to the fore anyway. The repercussions are for others to feel, not him.