The England ‘B’ team has lost 2-1 to a 10-man Belarus team in their international World Cup warm-up friendly at the Madejski stadium in Reading.

The loss to Belarus is only the second time that the England ‘B’ team have lost on home-soil in history.

England started strongly, and had a goal disallowed as being off-side after Spurs’ Aaron Lennon made a run into the penalty area and passed a lovely cross for Liverpool striker Peter Crouch to poke in from close-range in the 8th minute.

With that early scare, the Belarus team began to show some attacking momentum with Belarus’ left-winger Timofey Kalachev making inroads, but being broken down by the England defence.

Lennon showed his pace again in the 14th minute, but his lobbed-shot over the Belarus keeper Yuri Zhenov also went high of the bar.

Timofey Kalachev played a perfect pass to his striking team-mate Vitaliy Bulyga, who broke the England defence for the first time, but his shot went wide.

Just seconds later Bulyga managed to get another shot on goal, this time just inches high of the bar.

Middlesbrough’s Stewart Downing was taking all the free-kicks for England, and came very close to opening the scoring on the half-hour mark, with a 30-yard shot on goal that Zhevnov could only parry away, but his defenders cleared their lines.

The deadlock was broken in the 34th minute when England captain Michael Owen’s header came off the bar, only for Tottenham’s Jermaine Jenas to tuck the shot away from close range with his head.

In the last minutes of the first-half, England had yet another free-kick from outside the penalty area which went to waste and from the break, the Belarus team came close when from a corner, Maksim Romaschenko’s ball in came off the post, only to be saved by David James.

The second half started with Norwich City keeper Robert Green replacing David James in goal, and virtually his first touch of the game saw the standby keeper slip as he was routinely clearing the ball.

The resulting slip badly injured the talented young England hopeful, and the ball fell to Belarus striker Vitaly Kutuzov who slotted the ball into the empty net.

Green was stretchered off the pitch, to be replaced in goal by Liverpool's Scott Carson.

Minutes later, Spurs’ Man-of-the-Match Aaron Lennon made another spectacular run at goal, back-heeling the ball neatly to captain Owen, who was not expecting the pass, and went away to safety.

Belarus were lucky not to concede a penalty in the 60th minute after a deliberate handball in the penaly-area, but the referee and linesman both failed to see it.

This saw the introduction of Arsenal’s Theo Walcott who immediately tried to make an impact on the game and at one point had a shot from long range saved by Zhevnov.

Belarus defender Sergey Omelianchuk was sent-off for two yellow cards in the space of as much time in the 73rd minute after bringing down Aaron Lennon, who had an excellent match.

Jermain Defoe and Michael Dawson came on in the 79th minute for Crouch and Downing and at the same time, Belarus made a substitition, which immediately paid-off as sub Sergey Kornilenko finished off with a lovely strike to make it 2-1 to the visitors.

Michael Dawson had a looping header saved by the Belarus keeper in the dying minutes of normal time, with another England substitute, Chelsea’s Joe Cole, having a strike from distance to try and get an equaliser.

England tried hard to find an equaliser, but their momentum had already been lost after the loss of Green.

It has been confirmed that Robert Green has ruptured his groin, and is now going to miss any chance of featuring in the World Cup Finals, meaning that Scott Carson will be travelling to Germany as the third-choice shot-stopper.