Dom Bess and Jos Buttler help England build lead over Pakistan on rain-hit day two at Headingley

England (302-7) lead Pakistan (174) by 128 runs

Nightwatchman Bess top-scored with 49 (Getty Images)

As ever, Saturday at the Test is fancy dress day, and joining the morris dancers, mariachi bands and drunken archbishops at Headingley on day two were about half a dozen blokes doing a passable impression of international batsmen. On a rain-truncated day in Leeds, England carved out a lead from which no team batting second here has ever lost: playing with intent and intelligence, with patience and planning, looking above all like a team determined not to give their hard-won position away.

At which point, the churlish among you will probably point out that none of their batsmen actually made it to 50, which on most days would be a matter of mild concern. But in the context it was an impressive enough effort, in conditions where the uneven bounce, swirling cloud and occasional nibble made scoring possible, but not for very long. The fact that eleven batsmen in this match have got to 20, but none of them reached 60, suggests that this is a pitch where sooner or later you get one with your name on it.

And so against a much-improved Pakistan attack, England will be encouraged by the resolve of their middle order, by the notable absence of a collapse, by the strokeplay of nightwatchman (and top scorer with 49!) Dom Bess, by the counter-attacking bravado of Jos Buttler, who remains unbeaten on 34 overnight and offers England’s best chance of turning their strong lead into an unassailable one. Even on a day shortened to 59 overs by rain, if you had offered England seven down at stumps, they would certainly have taken it.

(Getty Images (Getty Images)

Pakistan were much better too, having had the whole morning and much of the afternoon to ponder their day-one predicament. Not until 2.45pm did the morning drizzle finally abate sufficiently for play to resume. And after Bess and Joe Root had plundered 32 runs in the first six overs in front of a damp, drunk and suddenly animated crowd, Root greedily tried to drive a full seaming delivery from Mohammad Amir: another soft edge, another angry swish of the bat from the England captain, another start given away.

So the assurance of Bess, carrying on from where he left off at Lord’s, was a welcome bonus. There are those who believe he could be a genuine all-rounder for England one day, and even if his trigger movement - not so much back-and-across as back-and-back - is a touch unconventional, the way he rides the bounce to force the ball through the off-side, off both front and back foot, is extremely pleasant. There’s a nonchalance to him, too: witness the way he wandered down the track to turn Mohammad Abbas through mid-wicket for three, a slice of youthful flair that encouraged Dawid Malan to do the same thing very next ball.

Malan is probably the most vulnerable of England's batsmen at the moment, and his knock here summed up why: some sumptuous drives, some fortuitous edges, a lot of patient leaving and blocking, and then finally a thick edge to a delivery that reared and spat at him like a blender with the lid off. It all seemed like a lot of work for just 28, and you wonder whether England need a No4 with a few more gears, more scoring options, better ways of relieving the pressure and getting off strike.

Jos Buttler impressed on his return to the Test side (Getty Images)

Eventually it was the bounce that did for a crestfallen Bess, too: a good-length delivery from the leggie Shadab Khan that got big on him. And shortly afterwards came perhaps the pivotal moment of the day: the incoming Buttler, having made just four, drilled a catch straight to Hasan Ali at mid-wicket, who dropped it. That would have left England 220-6, a mini-collapse in train, their lead still slender.

Instead Buttler, mixing slightly awkward defence with bulging-bicep drives to a well-spread field, saw England to the close, first with Jonny Bairstow, then with Chris Woakes, and finally with Sam Curran, who owed his Test debut to a certain good fortune, in the injury suffered by Ben Stokes, and owed his overnight survival to more, edging the ball past his stumps several times before wielding a sparkling pair of boundaries in the final over of the day to see England pass 300.

England certainly shouldn’t lose from here - although with the current lot, you can’t ever rule it out - but perhaps of greater importance was the fact that you could feel the confidence returning to this side, by painstaking and miniscule degrees. It’ll take a lot more than five good sessions, a lot more than one Test win, to convince us that this England team are a serious prospect. But perhaps they needed to convince themselves of it first.