"We don't need pace, we have pace at home."
That argument rarely pacifies anyone and always rings hollow, but in Pakistan's case, it actually was true. They had operated for two Test matches, and the entirety of the previous tour, with Mohammad Abbas and two pale imitations of him, maintaining the position that, really, pace didn't matter as much as people thought. They hadn't succeeded in convincing anyone else, but, after Lord's, they decided it was time to stop deluding themselves, too.
****
No one seemed to know who'd brought Razaullah to England. On Friday, incoming head coach Mike Hesson focused primarily on what he did not know about Pakistan's reshuffle rather than what he did. On Monday, incoming bowling coach Ashley Noffke, too, called it "external stuff" he had no ability to control or influence. On Tuesday, Pakistan captain Babar Azam was most emphatic of all, saying he didn't know who came in or why they had been selected. And he definitely wasn't asked. On Wednesday, Razaullah was Pakistan's first-change bowler on the first afternoon at Edgbaston.
Nothing about it makes sense. Razaullah made his first-class debut in November, and had played just eight red-ball games in his career. If he was earmarked as a prospect, then it was a well-kept secret. He played a couple of games at the PSL, went for plenty of runs, and, even in a cricket environment where it can feel there are infinite claimants to an international call-up, Razaullah barely registered on the national conscience. Last month, he was playing a domestic one-day cup, where he was rapid, but also expensive, going at just under a run-a-ball and averaging nearly 55. Even at Edgbaston, all Saud Shakeel could say about him was that he "seems like a nice guy".
All of that, when put through the secret formula of Pakistan cricket's mayhem generator, spat out what should happen next; he needed to begin his Test match career right away, and bowl his first delivery to Joe Root, this generation's greatest accumulator of Test match runs. The stand opposite the Hollies at Edgbaston has been knocked down to make way for a hotel in time for next year's Ashes, and even that looked readier than Razaullah right now.
Maybe it only seems crazy at this remove; the products of Pakistan's cricket environment have learned to ride the caprices of cricketing fortune. Perhaps this, Razaullah might have thought, is how things were supposed to be. He just knew that every bowler on his side he'd seen so far was rather slow, and slow is one thing he wasn't. That's why he was here.
"Nothing that transpires over the remainder of this Test should dignify the indignities Pakistan put their cricketers through over the past week. If Razaullah was rated that highly, he might have featured in Pakistan's plans before the series was lost"
The first ball demonstrated that neatly, hard length, off stump, 89mph/143kph. Already the fastest ball a Pakistani had sent down this series. Root, who'd acknowledged in the build-up that his side had been able to glean virtually no information about most of Pakistan's new arrivals, knew enough to get in line and just defend. By the third ball, the action had become slingier, the grunt a little louder, the pace even quicker: 90mph/144kph.
Root might not have known much about Razaullah, but when you've got 14,000 runs and change, it doesn't quite work the other way. Razaullah has lived in the obscurities of Pakistan's northern mountain region, but it still isn't remote enough to have escaped noticing Joe Root has had trouble this season.
He arrowed his fourth ball into Root's pads. One of the appeals of Razaullah has been his ability to find movement both ways, and Root's tendency to cover his outside edge currently makes him vulnerable to that kind of delivery. The keeper wasn't standing up, so the Root could have mitigated the lbw threat by standing outside the crease. At Razaullah's pace though - 89mph again - that's not easy to do. Root went across slightly, but it tailed back in towards leg stump. With that low skiddy action, height wasn't the issue either, striking Root on the knee roll and doubling him over. Before he'd conceded his first Test run, Razaullah had the prize wicket of Root.
The wind in his sails, he pushed himself even harder - up to 91mph/146kph to Harry Brook, who just about deflected it away off the inside edge. Emilio Gay was able to let the last ball go, and Razaullah let out a cry of annoyance. He'd let his length, but not his pace, go; he'd averaged 89.7mph/144kph across his first six balls of Test cricket, 3mph quicker than any Pakistan over all series. Individually, every ball that over was quicker than every other ball a Pakistan bowler has sent down this tour.
Razaullah was not done with Gay, however. In the following over, he struck him on the knee roll off an inside edge that had him hobbling briefly and needing medical attention. The following two balls were clocked at 91 and 92mph respectively, and while the stress of the effort he exerted began to take a toll on his accuracy, he refused to lose sight of the his raison d'etre in this country: bowl fast. Only Mark Wood, Jofra Archer, Dale Steyn, Anrich Nortje and Shannon Gabriel have bowled faster spells in England than Razaullah's first set of five since 2010.
By the final two overs of his spell, his rawness was beginning to show. He went shorter and wider, and then down leg side to Brook in an over that cost him 15, and Gay helped himself to another boundary when Razaullah went fuller. This was not a surprise; an official within Pakistan cricket told Cricinfo most of the newcomers lacked preparation in long-form cricket with the Dukes balls used in England, but accepted that was the hand they had been dealt now.
But that inexperience has not, for now, dulled Razaullah's spark. At the very end of the day, Babar brought him back on for a four-over burst, one in which he did not drop below the high 80s mph once more. It might have been easy to become dispirited; England's fourth-wicket partnership had ticked over 100, and they had already gone past Pakistan's feeble offering of 133. A wayward half-volley had been dispatched by Gay with aplomb, but Razaullah went wider and cut it back into the batter later in the over, missing the inside edge by a whisker.
It was a wicket-taking delivery that went wicketless, but Test cricket balanced Razaullah's ledger next ball. He held up his end of the bargain by cranking it up to 90mph, even if it was full and wide once more. Perhaps that extra pace rushed Gay, though, and he chopped back onto his stumps. It was a wicket against the run of play, but Razaullah has not exactly charted a predictable path to where he has somehow ended up.
Nothing that transpires over the remainder of this Test should dignify the indignities Pakistan put their cricketers through over the past week. If Razaullah, after all, was rated that highly, he might have featured in Pakistan's plans before the series was lost. If pace, indeed, was quite as important as Pakistan now suddenly believe again it is, then Ubaid Shah might have been more than a travelling passenger on tour. If strategic cohesiveness was forefront on the PCB agenda, perhaps there would be more clarity on who was actually in charge, and whether they had any plan that wasn't so susceptible to the buffeting of the weekly winds of social media.
But Pakistan supporters might as well be asking for the moon. And so, in another Test they look set to lose, they hooked into their veins yet another short-term hit, of a raw, unknown fast bowler making a batter dance to the rhythms of his tune. They can ignore, till tomorrow at least, the soul-crushing truth that given the structure around him, it is a tune he may never get the chance to turn into a masterpiece.