England put themselves into a commanding position to win the second Test and level the series at the Basin Reserve but the cautious way they went about setting New Zealand a mammoth target of 438 spoke of a team still struggling to relocate its confidence. They had not won any of their previous seven Tests and only one of their past 16 overseas. It showed.

As if to show that they would have to scrap every inch for a much-needed victory, James Anderson, their first-innings hero with the ball, freakishly turned his left ankle in a warm-down game of football after stumps yesterday but was fit for the resumption early today.

Anderson put on 16 for England’s 10th wicket with Monty Panesar before Panesar edged to second slip, and then opened the bowling as planned with Ryan Sidebottom, although was clearly hampered. A cold and blustery morning handicapped England’s hopes of making the most of the new ball but Sidebottom still had Jamie How caught at short leg.

That was in the seventh over and left the hosts at one for 18 but Matthew Bell and Stephen Fleming, playing his final Test innings on his home ground, left the ball well and denied England any further success in the hour before lunch. New Zealand entered lunch at one for 42, still trailing England by 396 runs.

Sidebottom was the most dangerous bowler, and gave away just nine runs in eight overs, but Anderson and Stuart Broad could have applied more pressure.

The nearest there was to a second breakthrough was when Paul Collingwood located Fleming’s outside edge with his first ball but Tim Ambrose spilled what was no more than a reflex chance.

Shortly after lunch, Collingwood himself put down Bell, evidence that English nerves were jangling. But Broad, the unlucky bowler on that occasion, got his reward four overs later with a double strike, having How caught behind and Fleming bowled shouldering arms.

Not until England’s lead had topped 350 late on the third day did they seem to relax a little, and all that happened then was that they lost five wickets in 75 minutes, four of them to the second new ball.

Before that, their progress was stilted as they built up their lead with apprehension rather than ambition. Chastened by totalling 81 in Galle before Christmas and 110 in Hamilton last week, and with a pre-tour instruction from the selectors to score more centuries still ringing in their ears, these were not batsmen in the mood for risk-taking.

That two bowlers — and no batsmen — had been dropped after the horror of Hamilton might have weighed on their consciences. At the very least they had to look like they were trying.

A long-awaited victory was put within tantalising reach but even on the toughest day for bowling in this match so far, centuries continued to elude the top six. There may not have been any clouds in the sky, but a sizeable one still hung over England’s tremulous batting.

Alastair Cook, troubled by varied lines of attack, fell for a scratchy 60; Andrew Strauss, uneasy away from his opener’s role, went for an even more hesitant 44; and Ian Bell was out for 41, his 17th dismissal between 40 and 99 in 35 Tests.

Once again, the savviest innings came from Collingwood, whose measured 59 was his third half-century of the series and an object-lesson in late-innings management. When he went in, England were teetering slightly at 160 for four, three wickets having fallen in quick order, and the situation needed stabilising. Within minutes, he had nearly done the opposite. In trying to hit Daniel Vettori over the top to get off the mark, he miscued grotesquely, high to deep mid-off, but fortunately the wind swirled enough to deceive Mark Gillespie.

This was one of three chances put down. Bell gave a half-chance to point on 12 and Cook was badly missed on five by Brendon McCullum, who palmed an edge that might have been taken by first slip. New Zealand’s bowlers deserved better; they have never yet let England’s batsmen assume control. An England win offers no guarantee of security in Napier.

Although their batsmen have not covered themselves in glory in New Zealand, England appear to have discovered men who can bat successfully at numbers six and seven.

Ambrose has the potential to be the best gloveman capable of making good runs since Alec Stewart while Collingwood has shown in both Tests that he could be the pivotal No 6 that the team has craved since the loss of Andrew Flintoff.

Collingwood has moved down the order — from No 4 at the outset of the Australia tour, to No 5 at the start of last summer, to No 6 now — with some reluctance. But he is an intelligent, adaptable cricketer who might just be the man to oversee the kind of lower-order resistance that makes sides so much harder to beat. On the face of it, his latest demotion made him the most vulnerable of the six specialist batsmen in the XI. But, as so often with Collingwood, impressions are not all they seem. In the absence of Flintoff, he has become England’s most valuable player — a tenacious batsman, an excellent fielder and useful support bowler. He is rarely out of the game for long.

In the first innings in Hamilton, he and Ambrose put on 90 together.

Here in the first innings in Wellington, the paid added 164, England’s biggest stand of the series. Yesterday, Collingwood stayed 39 overs while 117 crucial runs were added.

Collingwood remains at the heart of this England team as they battle to rebuild into a tough unit. He is Michael Vaughan’s first lieutenant and remains as likely an heir-apparent to the Test captaincy as anyone. Kevin Pietersen and Bell may be more gifted strokemakers, but they are more likely than he is to give away their wickets in frustration, as happened with Bell yesterday.

Knowing his limitations, Collingwood was happy to ride out the tough periods — at one stage he remained on 47 for eight overs — before releasing the pressure by putting away the next couple of loose balls that come along. Several times in his career he has mixed attack and defence to good effect with the tail, notably at Nagpur during his maiden Test century two years ago. He gets the job done.

During England’s difficult string of overseas tours since the Ashes win of 2005, Collingwood is the only regular batsman to average more than 40. And his statistical superiority brooks little argument: 1,251 runs at an average of 48.11. Confidence-wise, he seems to have withstood the setbacks best of all.

The Australians, one suspects, would have aimed to break New Zealand spirits not just for the remainder of the game but for the next one in Napier starting on Saturday.

But the England dressing-room seemed to treat each wicket as potentially the beginning of another collapse and reason for ultra-caution.