Warm sunshine and a good Lord's pitch bodes well for cricket lovers this week, but for England's players this Test match represents a huge challenge.
Quite simply, the decline must stop here.
Andrew Strauss will be bursting with pride when he leads his team through the Long Room for the first time.
 Steve Harmison will be keen to inspire England to victory |
He knows, however, that if England are seriously to launch a defence of the Ashes in little over four months' time, the disturbing slide - which plumbed new depths during the one-day series against Sri Lanka - must be arrested.
England have to become used to winning matches again.
This will be easier said than done against Pakistan, but one thing that Strauss must make clear - and Duncan Fletcher must take note too - is that the constant blaming of injuries will not wash.
Pakistan will be without their two leading pace bowlers, Shoaib Akhtar and Rana Naved, throughout the series and this certainly compensates for England's casualties. All we can hope is that the overall standard of cricket in this series is not affected.
It is unlikely to be because these two teams are more than capable of playing attractive cricket. Pakistan's top order is brimming with classy batsmen, and with Kamran Akmal, Abdul Razzaq and Shahid Afridi in the middle, there will be no shortage of shots played.
Mohammad Asif is quickly emerging as one of the most promising pace bowlers in the world and although Mohammad Sami can blow hot and cold, he enjoyed a successful series against England in Pakistan last winter.
 Jones has much to prove in the face of some sustained criticism |
The main threat is Danish Kaneria, the leg-spinner, who should come into his own at Old Trafford and in the final test at The Oval.
An enthusiastic, rather voluble man, he spectacularly spun England to defeat in the last test before Christmas.
But the real damage on that tour occurred at the very beginning.
In Inzamam's dusty home town of Multan, England failed miserably to chase a small target and lost a game they should have won.
Apart from the brave victory at Bombay to square the series in India, England have looked a pale imitation of last summer's Ashes winners ever since.
They can no longer dine out on their reputations, and for players such as Steve Harmison, Andrew Strauss (who has scored only one hundred since England's win at the Oval) and Geraint Jones (two fifties in his last 10 Tests), the time has come to deliver the goods once again.
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