By Geoffrey Dean in Matara

ENGLAND touring sides have had an abnormal amount of bad luck with injuries in recent years but one actually worked in their favour yesterday. Jonathan Powell pulled out of the second A Test 40 minutes before the start owing to an infected spinning finger, and his replacement, Dean Cosker, played a leading part in Sri Lanka's dismissal for 171.

Whether Powell, an off-spinner who has just joined the tour after helping England Under-19s to win the Youth World Cup in South Africa, would have been as threatening as Cosker is doubtful, for by the time Nick Knight called up a second spinner in support of Ashley Giles, all three Sri Lankan left-handers had been dismissed. With only right-handers remaining, Cosker's ability to turn the ball away from them earned him his three victims.

The pair shared seven wickets, benefiting from several factors. Most importantly, the dampness in the pitch, which had delayed the start by 45 minutes, allowed the ball, as the Australians like to say, to grip and rip. Giles's first delivery spun two feet and, equally significantly, much more quickly than in the first Test. There, the ball had only really turned when pitched wide, but here it was doing so off the straight.

Giles and Cosker said afterwards how much both benefited from bowling in tandem, a tactic Knight had surprisingly not employed in the first Test. ``We complement each other as we're different bowlers,'' said Giles, 6ft 3in. ``Me with my height, and Deano with his extra loop as he's shorter. The other thing that helped was the umpires' willingness to give decisions. We just didn't get them in the first Test.''

Three Sri Lankans were given out to catches off bat-pad at silly point, all taken by the reliable Knight. The first was the most important, for it removed Avishka Gunawardena, who had clinically dispatched some at times loose new-ball bowling to reach 51 off 57 balls.

Giles beat Naveed Nawaz in the flight to induce a return catch, whereupon Cosker began dismantling the middle order. Bowling slightly quicker than in the first Test, perhaps because he had the assistance of the breeze, he settled into what he felt was his best rhythm of the tour. His one technical shortcoming, an occasional tendency to let his bowling arm sag, was overcome as he kept it high.

England lost Knight in the first over to an inswinger, but Steve James and Darren Maddy, maintaining his outstanding form on this tour, consolidated. The spinners came on early but the pitch, now dry, was turning both less and slower.

Graham Gooch said last night that the tour was ``still on at the moment'', despite yesterday's bomb in far-off Colombo. He will discuss its implications with the British High Commissioner today.

Day 2: Hollioake takes his chance to entertain

By Geoffrey Dean

GIVE Ben Hollioake a stage and he will show how to enrapture an audience. The Uyanwatta Stadium may have been near-empty yesterday but for quality of performance, it probably witnessed an even better act than Hollioake managed at Lord's last summer. Judging by their applause, his team-mates thought so, after he had bailed them out following some bad batting by the top order.

Thanks to Hollioake's maiden first-class hundred, reached in 166 balls, and to Ashley Giles, who helped him add an important 98 in 34 overs for the eighth wicket, England A are well placed to win this second unofficial Test. Valuable runs also came from the last-wicket pair of Dean Cosker and Paul Hutchison, who put on 31 to stretch the lead to 89 on a difficult, turning pitch with widening cracks.

Unsurprisingly, Hollioake rated this his best first-class innings. Soon after his arrival at the crease, England were 93 for five, but Hollioake refused to allow the Sri Lankan spinners to get on top. Down the pitch he repeatedly came - even to the left-armer Bandartilleke - messing up their length. Mapping them from outside off stump, defending with soft hands, hitting straight down the ground whenever possible, this was a remarkable tutorial for one so young on how to bat on such a wicket. By some way, he is the best player of spin in the side.

Afterwards, he confessed how much he wanted to show he could bat with prolonged discipline, frustrated by those who have pigeon-holed him as merely a carefree stroke player. A look at his boundary count shows that it was low for him - nine fours. He also swept a six before memorably going to his hundred with a second - over long-on.

The next ball he was out, adjudged caught off bat-pad. If that looked an incorrect decision, there was no doubt about the five lbws yesterday. Darren Maddy and Mark Ealham, both back when they should have been forward, fell to the 17-year-old off-spinner, Arshad Juniad.

David Sales, like Steve James, padded up to Bandartilleke's arm ball. Later, he extracted considerable turn to have David Nash lbw before bowling Dougie Brown in the same over with a brutish delivery that pitched leg and hit off.

Day 3: Resolute Sri Lankans aided by sluggish pitch

By Geoffrey Dean in Matara

A PITCH that went to sleep, changing character from the first two days, stymied England A's chances of bowling the Sri Lankans out for a second time. With one day of this second unofficial Test remaining, the home side led by 107 with seven wickets in hand.

Whereas the English spinners had been a handful on the first day, obtaining big and quick turn, yesterday they had to content themselves with much less turn, and most of it when the ball was pitched wide.

With the pitch now completely devoid of moisture after starting the match damp, the ball did not grip as well as in the first innings. Nor did the edges of a myriad of cracks start to crumble - always what a spinner hopes for.

Above all, the wicket had lost pace, and to a drastic degree. Dougie Brown thought it the slowest he had ever bowled on. Moreover, the carry was poor. Dean Cosker and Ben Hollioake (twice) each found the edge, but the ball dropped short of the slips. Finally, the new ball swung only for the first few overs before cutting up badly, and later, it stubbornly refused to reverse swing.

Nick Knight tried everything he could have done with his bowling resources. He used all five seamers, including Darren Maddy, and switched the spinners from one end to the other and back again. But to no avail.

Leading the Sri Lankan resistance were the tall, willowy Russel Arnold and the tiny wicketkeeper Pubudu Dassanayake, who nudged and nurdled his way to a four-hour fifty, fortunate that he was not given out on six when he appeared to glove Ashley Giles to David Nash.

Arnold profited from kindly umpiring when an apparent edge to Nash off Hollioake early in his innings was not acknowledged. He eventually fell to a superb reaction catch by Steve James off the full face of the bat at short-leg.

England's other two successes came when Cosker classically turned one through a big drive from the left-handed Avishka Gunawardena, and much later when Mahela Jayawardena chopped on to Giles. Otherwise, Sri Lankan mistakes were rare, and indeed they batted with impressive concentration and resolve.

England owed their lead of 89 largely to Hollioake's top- class maiden first-class hundred, reached off 166 balls with his second six. Giles partnered him in a crucial eighth-wicket stand of 98 in 34 overs.

Nash said afterwards: ``It was a very hard day for us because the pitch flattened out a lot. Towards the end the ball was bouncing and turning a bit as the pitch broke up, but a few decisions went against us.''

He said that Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting, their coaches, had been insisting to the players that they should not try to intimidate the umpires if decisions went against them.

Day 4: Giles sets the right example

By Geoffrey Dean in Matara

PAUL HUTCHISON, an old fashioned number 11, had never before played a sweep shot in first class cricket, but its belated employment won the second A Test for England in a gripping finish at Matara yesterday.

With the scores level and three balls of the match remaining, Hutchison, surrounded by close catchers and single-savers, swept an off-break round the corner to secure a one-wicket victory, remarkably England's first positive result in 10 A Tests in Sri Lanka to date.

The Sri Lankans deserve praise for their surprise declaration, which left England the awkward target of 192 in 49 overs on a slow, turning pitch. A delighted Knight said: ``I thought at first it was a wind-up when I was told they were pulling out.''

Ranjith Fernando, the home team's manager, said that his side had to be prepared to lose to stand a chance of winning. ``At least in these A Tests your head is not on the chopping block,'' he smiled.

England came very close to losing, but may well have been saved by their own wonderful spirit of adventure. At no time did the shutters go up, even when they lost their eighth wicket with 30 needed off six overs. This helped remove close catchers and put the Sri Lankans on the defensive.

To counter the spinners on such a pitch, England swept continuously, both straight deliveries and those wide of off stump. David Sales, whose hard hit 45 came off 49 balls, and then Hollioake, less powerful but more canny, scored the vast majority of their runs with laps and sweeps. Their stand of 86 in 100 balls turned the game after the top four had fallen behind the run-rate and sacrificed themselves.

Ashley Giles, pluckily supported by Dean Cosker, chivvied England to victory with an audacious unbeaten 20 off 26 balls to cap an outstanding all round performance.

Giles bowled scarcely a bad delivery in 44 overs in the second innings and finished with a match haul of seven wickets and 59 runs.

Also important in England's success was the fact that the second new ball reverse swung in the Sri Lankan second innings.