Dean Cosker and Ashley Giles bowled England A into a commanding position on the opening day of the second unofficial Test here yesterday

Dean Cosker and Ashley Giles bowled England A into a commanding position on the opening day of the second unofficial Test here yesterday. The left- arm spinners claimed seven wickets between them as Sri Lanka A, who elected to bat after a 45-minute delay because groundstaff had over-watered the wicket, were dismissed for 171. Giles claimed 4 for 52 while Cosker grabbed 3 for 46 as the pair bowled virtually unchanged in tandem as Sri Lanka lost their last nine wickets for 101 runs.
England made a disastrous start to their reply with the captain, Nick Knight, being trapped lbw by Ruchira Perera with the third ball of the innings but Steve James finished unbeaten on 23 while Darren Maddy continued his prolific form by reaching the close on 22.England A will take advice from government officials following another fatal bomb blast in Colombo yesterday. It’s already started, and I’m hoping some of this might begin to show.”With this in mind the beleaguered Scots would seem to be the ideal opposition for Ashton’s men. Their pre-Christmas programme was as disastrous as the Irish, and with internal ructions rife, they appear to be ripe for further defeat.Ashton has two ways of looking at this.

“That’s certainly one accurate theory, but the other one is that they, under Jim Telfer and Ian McGeechan, will be fired up to the hilt to perform against us, and we’ve got to be very careful.”Still, I know what we can do. Now, though, there’s no way we’d get a win at Twickenham, not until the work’s been put in. The way we play, in the long-term, is far more important, than kicking our way to victory for the sake of a result That’s been part of the problem in the past. A win at Twickenham would make everyone satisfied, regardless of whatever else happened in the Five Nations.

We have 12 English-based players in the side, so there shouldn’t be any excuses there.”I think the hardest barrier to clear is just the habit of losing. I’m not certain the players have the confidence to win matches, at least not in an Irish green jersey. It’s amazing , really, to see them on the training pitch.”There they work as hard, and look as good as any other team in the Five Nations. When they play for their clubs they are used to winning matches, but as soon as they wear the green of Ireland the inhibition factor comes into it.”A win tomorrow could change everything “I really think that’s all it could take,” Ashton said. “It would break that losing habit and give the team a great deal of confidence. It would mean that we could look forward to the rest of the Five Nations in the hope that we could get at least one further win.”But I’m not going out just to win.