There was a particular irony to the timing of Pakistan's visit to Clarence House to meet King Charles III.
The day before the cricket team, and, judging by the official photographs put out, the administrative and management staff of the team, met the king, Pakistan had packed off half their team and all their coaches and brought in new ones. That the meeting took place on the anniversary of the death of Oliver Cromwell, one of the architects of Britain's most famous royal purge - the execution of King Charles I in 1649 - was perhaps just an unfortunate coincidence.
However, so soon after that PCB reshuffle did the royal visit come about that a number of those sacked had not yet left the country, or indeed the touring group, and were part of the visit. None of those called up had yet arrived. It formed the perfect contrast - a totem of unchanged stability whose right to be in his position has been worked out to the last genetic cul de sac, posing alongside a group of men refreshing their WhatsApp notifications to make sure they were still supposed to be there.
Hidden away to the right in the second row between the team captain and the team manager, like a photo stand-in at a tourist attraction, was Saud Shakeel, a man who could, in some perverse way, relate to both the chaos and the stability. Until Pakistan's tour of the West Indies in July, Shakeel was one of just two players who participated in every single Test for his side. The other, incidentally, was Salman Agha, among the seven turfed out of the squad by that now-infamous nondescript media release. Just a fortnight earlier, he had led the team out at Headingley, before losing his place the following week, and his place on the tour altogether a few days later. That fate could just as easily have been Shakeel's, but, just like the photograph, Shakeel has been happy to blend into the background.
That is not in itself some chaste noble feat. Indeed, the closest comparison that can be drawn comes with Asad Shafiq, whose vast talent as a batter was matched only by the timidity of his character. It saw him fail to make the most of his ability in the latter half of his career, or indeed contribute in any palpable way after his playing career as batting coach, a position he held until last month, or selector, a duty that, at least at the time of writing, he has not been relieved of.
Away from his home advantages, Shakeel, diminutive and reserved already, has further shrunk into himself. Until Lord's, there was a 20-point gulf between his averages at home and away, dropping from over 50 to under 31. The homesickness has only intensified the further away from cricketing familiarity he has travelled: on bouncier tracks in South Africa, he averaged 30, and on a baptism of fire in Australia, that dropped down to 15. In his first three innings in England, on what has in spirit been like one of Pakistan's phantasmagorical Australian tours, he managed just 35 runs.
Shakeel could have sensed the chaos bubbling around him when he went out to bat in the fourth innings, at 14 for 3, replacing Babar Azam, who had been turned inside out by a Jofra Archer bouncer. His place in the side was perhaps never more vulnerable than now, the hint coming from his omission from the West Indies Tests.
He may be a quiet man, but why he struggles on quicker pitches isn't really a mystery. He played most of his cricket on Karachi's slow, low surfaces, turning him into a phenomenal player of spin. It is why he averages 77.50 in his hometown, and Sri Lanka houses the only away venue to have witnessed Shakeel's ability in the right circumstances, with 295 runs against two dismissals, as well as his highest Test score, and the only nation outside Pakistan that has allowed him to taste a Test victory.
But it makes him susceptible to short deliveries that rear without warning, with his tendency to hang back allowing bowlers to make further inroads with the fuller ball. In Australia, all six brief innings ended at the hands of a fast bowler, with five short deliveries, and one fuller ball he nicked off after Josh Hazlewood had pinned him on to the back foot. On this tour, that flat-footedness coming forward had been exploited in each of his first three dismissals.
In the fourth innings, though, Shakeel seemed to let go of that fear and uncomplicated his movements and strategy. He was no longer searching, wide-eyed, for the next bouncer that he had to burrow underneath, like a ringed seal expecting to find a polar bear when it comes up for air. He began to raise his bat above head height and steer the ball away, making sure the delivery cost the bowler more than just effort.
Of the 31 short deliveries England's quicks peppered him with, he attacked 21, and scored 35 runs. A hefty chunk of those came amid his mad dash for a century before the bottom fell out of Pakistan's lower order, but even as he built up Pakistan's fourth-wicket partnership with Shan Masood, the short delivery had become, for Shakeel, one he was scoring runs off.
His issues against the short ball hadn't been left unresolved because no one had picked up on them; sometimes, there simply is a technical ceiling. Playing short-pitched stuff on juicy surfaces against wickedly fast bowlers is tough, possibly the toughest challenge of all. Batters greater than Shakeel will struggle against it, and, for all his troubles, there are few batters right now in Pakistan greater than Shakeel.
It might not mean anything in the larger picture; Shakeel did score a similarly impressive half-century in South Africa which didn't herald a new phase in his overseas career. But in someone like him, Pakistan have a player who appears to value the ability he has, and, in what feels almost radical, actively tries to hone it. Despite the chainsaw burring in the background, Shakeel has spent enough time on Pakistan's domestic circuit to know there is little help that can realistically come from back home, and certainly not in time for Edgbaston.
For Pakistan to succeed in some form, Shakeel, as one of few left standing among this side's stable core, that will have to move past home comforts. In any case, as seven of his team-mates might attest to, home isn't quite the most comfortable place right now.