Pakistan home series is a triumph but what they really need is to play India

You may have noticed that there are side-effects to watching England’s series against Pakistan. Some are obvious, like a nascent infatuation with Harry Brook’s inside-out drives. Others, though, are less so. You may experience a nagging urge to switch to Sensodyne toothpaste “because life’s too short for sensitive teeth”, drink Tapal Tea, “it makes teatime terrific”, or start using Osaka Tubular Deep Cycle Premium Batteries. You may even find yourself overcome with inexplicable curiosity about the latest Dawlance Power Wash Challenge, in which members of the public compete on rowing machines to win a washing machine.

It’s easy to snigger at all this, the intermittent cutaways to approved toothpaste users gleefully biting into ice lollies in the stands, and drinkers mugging for the cameras over a steaming cup of the Pakistan Cricket Board’s official tea in the little wooden pavilion by the boundary. To be honest the joke gets even better when you see how some of the commentators who are contractually obliged to deliver these spiels feel about doing it (“Always good to see Waqar,” Mark Butcher tweeted under a photo of the two of them, “here we are, cooking up some more ads for toothpaste.”) But there’s something quietly interesting going on behind all this commercialism.

The PCB is spending so much on the security arrangements for these seven games that it is losing money on the tour. According to the British High Commission’s latest information, Pakistan is safer than it has been at any point since 2004, but the only way the PCB can get international teams over here is by laying on VVIP protection, which involves thousands of soldiers, dozens of armoured cars, and a couple of helicopters. In Karachi, they had to shut the