LEEDS, Aug 5: The Smasher brand was on display on Saturday. Pakistan's short, squat, youngish openers both trusted their Smasher bat to rebrand their country's concept of an opening partnership.

As a marketing exercise it offered something different but failed to deliver its target.

Salman Butt and Taufiq Umar had been convinced of the powers of application over adventure. The best use of the Smasher, they had decided, was not to smash. And their respective methods of not smashing were quite different.

What was common, however, was their determination not to play away from their bodies, something they both managed admirably until Taufiq's patience failed him with a suicidal push outside off stump.

All of Pakistan's young left-handed openers favour playing away from their bodies outside off stump, head and feet away from the line. Saeed Anwar's legacy, you might say, but Saeed had the eye and hands of a genius.

At least their shared purpose achieved the highest opening stand of the series but thirty-four was a sorry response to England's five-hundred.

Taufiq was a bundle of fidgets and shuffles, limbo-dancing under rising deliveries or hurrying into a late readjustment forced upon him by his desire to commit early.

Salman was exquisitely late into his strokes, a technique that makes him look high class, a real prospect. Unfortunately, he carried his sluggishness in the field into his running between the wickets.

If Smasher bats were a couple of inches thinner and a couple of feet longer, Salman and Taufiq might still be batting today.

Admirable though it is, this defensive approach always worries me. Too many young Pakistani batsmen have two modes of operation, reckless or resolute.

The resolute approach involves risk avoidance, which is fine, but also run avoidance, which is potentially problematic and unsafe.

You see, patience does not come naturally to many of Pakistan's players. They need to feel the adrenaline rush of a boundary, the high of shattering the bowler's confidence.

What is really required, though, is a stout defence allied with an eye for a four-ball.

If these young men are wondering how to do it they have three masters of this mysterious art in their own middle order.

Two of them, Younis Khan and Mohammad Yousuf, again demonstrated why they are Pakistan's classicists.

A stylish, measured, and rapid century partnership relaunched Pakistan's innings and demonstrated that this pitch and England's bowlers are eminently capable of being subdued.

Controlled aggression, they told us, is the best form of defence.

Earlier Pakistan highlighted why they are behind in this series. The morning session was a dismal affair, with bowlers banging it in short on a wicket that has historically required a full length.

Why they persisted with this half-track length remains a mystery? The English newspapers were full of advice on the best length for Headingley, which cannot have escaped Bob Woolmer.

Their bowling coach, one Waqar Younis, made his reputation as a sand-shoe crusher, a bowler of full length.

Their captain, Mr Inzamam-ul- Haq, knows only too well how even the best batsmen can struggle when drawn forward. Their manager, Zaheer ‘Zed’ Abbas, was a master of English conditions.

Assuming all those people are fulfilling their roles professionally, the only conclusion can be that Pakistan's second-string bowlers are not up to it.

This must be a cause for concern for the PCB who have been bullish about the strength in depth of pace bowling that Pakistan possesses.

The bowlers, for their part, were not helped by Inzamam's captaincy. The first hour of the first and last sessions of the first day were devoid of leadership, as was the whole of the morning session on Saturday.

Inzamam has moved a mountain in helping Pakistan recover to second place in the Test standings.

The harsh reality for everyone who cares about Pakistan cricket is that the great man may well have reached the limit of his leadership abilities.