England forced to wait again as cricket's return is delayed... by rain!

But rain delayed the lot. It was heavy overnight, then relented, before returning half an hour before the scheduled toss, when the covers went back on.

Elworthy could only smile. “The first ball will be bowled eventually and, whenever it is, we are be ready,” he said.

The detail of Elworthy’s team’s work is inescapable for the 300 or so people here. Day staff — including the 12 members of the written media — are part of the “outer bubble” tested at the weekend, then temperature tested twice on the way into the ground, at the car park and gate. There are arrows and sanitising stations everywhere.

Many are staying onsite at the Hilton Hotel, where each different group (the two teams, officials, commentators) are separated with extreme social-distancing measures.

Having organised the World Cup for the ICC, Elworthy returned to the ECB last summer as director of special projects, one of which was due to be the new-format Hundred. Projects do not come much more special than this one, though.

“It’s so difficult to explain the level of challenge,” he told Standard Sport. “When you talk about a World Cup, it has huge challenges, but for very different reasons. It’s the second or third biggest sporting event in the world and comes with its own pressures. This is a completely different level, because it’s never been done before.”

The ECB watched the virus develop in the first quarter of the year. When they started working from home in mid-March, Elworthy says “that’s when it really sunk in” that they would have to radically reimagine the summer.

The process involved “effectively every single element of a Test match all having to be rewritten or thought about with a Covid lens on top of it”, he says. “That’s probably the biggest challenge because nobody’s ever written it. From a planning point of view, it’s just making sure you do belts and braces on absolutely everything. Ultimately, we have ended up with the safest and securest event we can possibly deliver.

“We can organise absolutely anything operationally, but you still need 22 players to take the field. I’ve just got huge praise for the West Indies getting on a plane and coming across here, and Pakistan quarantining now.”

He is right. English cricket owes a huge debt of gratitude to the tourists. In May, ECB chief Tom Harrison said the game faced a £380million black hole if the summer was washed out.

“It’s a Test match and hopefully will be a fantastic game of cricket, but this is about protecting the long-term sustainability of the sport,” says Elworthy. “It’s vital that we get these series played and as much cricket as we can.”