What is common between Imran Farhat, Taufeeq Umer, Naveed Latif, Shoaib Malik, Yasir Hameed, Imran Nazir, Shahid Afridi, Saleem Elahi, Shadab Kabir, Salman Butt, Mohammad Hafeez, Kamran Akmal, Khurram Manzoor and Fawad Alam? They have all been slotted into the hot & boiling cauldron of problems - that was Pakistan’s trouble with finding openers, who could open, after Saeed-Sohail. Together these 14 have scored 8896 runs amongst themselves in 320 innings at an average of 27.80 – safe to say opening has been Pakistan’s Achilles heel over the past decade.

Never the most talented of the names with him up on that list, Taufeeq Umer has made the most of his opportunities, by sheer doggedness. He duly scored a century on debut against Bangladesh, but his qualities really shone through during the 88 against Australia during the ‘Shoaib Akhtar test’. There was a glimmer of hope as long as he was out there in the middle, that Pakistan might cause an upset after surrendering a huge lead in the first innings.

Subsequent let downs in the rest of the series and resurgence on the tour of Africa, established the fact that he was a lambii race ka ghora. He made the one-opening slot his own for nearly three years, after superlative performances on the bouncy tracks of South Africa, while also returning the favors at his home-town Lahore with 2 centuries of the highest quality.

But as is always the course, the true mettle of a Pakistani cricketer is judged by how he fares against the arch-rivals India. Two in-different home & away series against India and a lost Australian tour later, he was on the chopping board during the tour of England in 2006. One failure at Leed’s against Hoggard and Panesar later, Taufeeq found himself out of the national reckoning for the next 4 years.

A Pakistani opener with an average above 40 in test cricket is as hard to find as an Indus Blind Dolphin these days. Maybe making a comeback against his favourite opposition in 2010 was a blessing in disguise for Taufeeq, who has not looked back since. The 30 year-old has scored 968 runs at an average of 44 since October 2010. These include 3 fifties and 3 hundreds, with one of them being converted to a double. That is unheard of stuff for a Pakistani cricket fan that grew up watching the team in the ‘noughties’.

He is not your usual Pakistani batsman either, what he lacks in flair he more than makes up in grit and determination. Consistency is still an issue, but when a start has been achieved, he goes on to convert them into 50’s and 100’s. With Hafeez as his opening partner at the other end, Taufeeq has complimented his aggressive nature well, by stabling the tempo of the game. A few flaws in the technique have been overcome by putting away the pull/hook shot but still remain vulnerable early on with his slight turtle shuffle. Even his cynics have been won over by the fact that he is keeping Imran Farhat out of the test squad.

Add to that his safe pair of hands, while at slip and on point, one can almost forgive him for those facial expressions that betray his image of a solid test opener. Going into a shell and a slow strike rate remain sore points, but nothing that cannot be overcome by a challenge as big as England. The next step in the evolution of Taufeeq Umer as a batsman and Team Misbah, as a force to be reckoned with awaits them in the UAE.