The England ‘B’ team has gone into half-time 1-0 against Belarus in their international World Cup warm-up friendly at the Madejski stadium in Reading.

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 at 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.

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 corner came off the post, only to be saved by David James.

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