A FINE half-century from Worcestershire's Kadeer Ali failed to prevent England Under 19s from losing by five wickets against their Australian Cricket Board counterparts in Adelaide yesterday.

It was the second one-day warm-up match for the England party before the ICC Under 19 World Cup starts later this month in New Zealand.

Asked to bat first, England made 178-9 in their allotted 50 overs.

Kadeer top-scored with 51 off 71 balls with Gordon Muchall, from Durham, contributing 44 runs.

The Australians, despite faltering at one stage at 74-4, reached the target with nine overs to spare and five wickets remaining.

Their captain Cameron White struck an unbeaten 68 which followed his earlier efforts with the ball when he returned figures of 10-1-19-4 with his leg-spin bowling.

England will play two more games against the ACB today and on Friday before leaving for the World Cup, which starts in Christchurch on Sunday.