``We would have batted first if we had won the toss,'' said rival captain and Atherton's Lancashire team-mate Wasim Akram.

So did Atherton goof by inserting the opposition?

Not, thinks England coach David Lloyd. ''When there is a cloud cover at Headingley, there is always the chance the ball will do some- thing. You have to take a bold decision sometimes,'' said the England coach, who is awaiting confirmation of his continued tenure as coach for the upcoming tours of Zimbabwe and New Zealand.

It was obvious that England was taking Headingley's reputation for combining a well grassed pitch with an omnipresent cloud cov- er rather seriously - as witness the four seam bowlers the selectors picked for the match. And logically, that is the way to go, for Heading- ley has in the past favoured the seam and swing bowlers, and almost inevitably produced results.

``We felt that the best option at Headingley was to bowl them out twice,'' said Lloyd.

It was inevitable, perhaps, that Atherton in the circumstances would want to bowl first, and take advantage of the freshness in the wicket to give his bowlers a decent go at the Pakistan batsmen. As inevitable, perhaps, as the possibility of one or more Pakistan batsmen working out that the best counter on this wicket was to come onto the front foot and attack from the word go.

In the event, the England bowlers blew their chance by some sloppy, misdirected bowling, while Ijaz Ahmed rubbed it in with a blistering assault that got him 141 runs, including 20 fours and two sixes - his highest Test score, and the first century by a Pakistan bats- man at the venue.

And with the tourists 281 for six at the end of day one, Ijaz rubbed it in when he indicated that Pakistan's own pace attack, comprising Waqar Younis, Wasim Akram and Ata ur Rehman were licking their chops at the prospect of bowling at the England batsmen. ``Our bowlers are really looking forward to getting out there - I think every bowler would,'' said Ijaz.

Describing his innings, Ijaz said, ''I was very careful in the first 10 overs and decided to go for my shots and play positively. The pitch was difficult in the first couple of hours because it was seaming and there was a lot of bounce around off-stump.''

Much to his own chagrin, Ijaz had in the first Test at Lord's got his footwork horribly wrong, walking too far across and finding his middle stump uprooted, behind his legs, by Dominic Cork. ``I told my- self that I should score runs here, to cover my embarassment,'' said the Pakistan number three. Recalling the humiliation of being bowled round his legs, Ijaz said ''I played down the wrong line. In Australia ear- lier this year, I had got used to playing off the back foot, it has taken me some time to adjust, and to come onto the front foot here in England.''

Ijaz, who was out of the Pakistan side for a long while before taking advantage of Saeed Anwar's malaria-type ailment in 1995 to make a comeback, has now got centuries against all the three coun- tries - Australia, New Zealand and England - that Pakistan has played against this year.