There is an argument which says this is fine, if it is the tactical way the team want it, but if it bores the pants off the audience, too, it isn't so fine. The audience pay the wages, and old-fashioned as that may be in this oh-so profes- sional age, it stands as a principle just the same as it ever did. When the stage is like this, the theatres are empty.

Headingley was not full on Thursday, barely half full, in fact, and though the muted response of the 9,000 crowd to England's failure to capitalise on winning the toss was no surprise, it was a gigantic surprise that the place wasn't teeming with Pakistan loyalists who could rejoice in the batting of Ijaz Ahmed.

There was less to rejoice in yesterday - though the crowd was more substantial - save for Moin Khan's organised defence and Alec Stewart's brilliant riposte because no one was prepared to take the game by the scruff of the neck and shake it about. Pakistan occupied the crease stubbornly, under- standing that runs would come. England, miffed at their bowling on Thursday, resolved to bowl with seven fielders on the off side and to wait for batting errors. This betrayed their ability and suggested that they had resigned themselves to a disagreeable make of ball -Michael Atherton had again lost a toss on this im- portant issue - and an easier-paced and more evenly bouncing pitch than they had bargained for.

Truth is England selection is missing a point, which is that it is missing a spinner. The idea that the Headingley pitch offers nothing to spin is misguided. It is like saying a dry, turning pitch offers nothing to speed.

Graeme Hick did this for England at Lord's when his modest offbreaks picked up the wicket of the in-form Saeed Anwar

There was a time when Headingley's bounce was so bad that slow bowling was irrelevant because faster, seam-style bowling did the job. No more. This pitch was newly laid in 1993 and is a fairer test of batsmen.

But four medium-fast bowlers do not fully do the testing, at least of batsmen who settle and pick up the tempo and the rhythm of the play. Three of these are adequate, and the fourth bowler can be chosen to break rhythm and change tempo.

Graeme Hick did this for England at Lord's when his modest offbreaks picked up the wicket of the in-form Saeed Anwar.

Spin makes a batsman change the position of his head as he searches for the flight of the ball and it alters the position of his feet, as he stretches away from his body. Spin makes batsmen play the ball, which means they are commit- ted to movement off the pitch or drift in the air, and it makes batsmen find different places to score. Spinners are variety, and worth their salt on that alone. Granted, England do not have a Mushtaq or a Warne, but they do not have an Akram or a McDermott either, which is not stopping them choosing masses of fast bowlers. A wicket here and a wicket there can bring wickets everywhere, which is the lament for spin.

Strangely, considering the limited style of attack at his disposal, Atherton was less keen than he has been previously this summer to invent with his field placings. The nearest England came to the unorthodox was Jack Russell standing up to the stumps and that coincided with a wicket when Asif Mujtaba slashed to slip.

Perhaps Atherton's advisers had convinced him that attrition was his best weapon. It is best for England if Atherton has men to lean on rather than that men lean on him. His cap- taincy thrives when it comes from the instinct in his own broad mind and not from more narrow minds around him.