Hampshire's Brad Taylor admitted his England team received a crash course in Bangladeshi conditions after starring in a 97-run defeat by the hosts in their last Under-19s World Cup warm-up game.

England were reasonably happy after restricting Bangladesh to 246 for eight in their 50 overs, with Taylor the pick of the attack to earn figures of 10-1-25-2.

But their hopes of a successful chase were scuppered as they lost three wickets without scoring a run, with Taylor’s 41 from 52 balls lower down the order coming in a hopeless cause.

“It wasn’t a big spinning pitch, just skidding on and staying low,” reflected the Hampshire allrounder.

“Obviously Bangladesh are familiar with those conditions and played them well. But we’re disappointed about how we went about things. We would expect better of ourselves than that.”

Taylor praised the performance of both Lancashire’s Saqib Mahmood and Surrey’s Sam Curran with the new ball, even though Curran went wicketless in contrast to his five-wicket haul in England’s previous warm-up match against Namibia.

“Saqib bowled nicely with the new ball and so did Sam without any luck,” added the captain. “Max Holden also played a very good role with the ball at the end of their innings. But we lost it with the bat.”

Mahmood took two wickets with the new ball but Bangladesh recovered on a pitch that favoured the spinners.


Dan Lawrence, the Essex opener, took two of the other wickets to fall and Middlesex’s Max Holden claimed one, both with off spin.

But England then made a disastrous start to their reply, slipping to 0 for three in the second over as Lawrence, Holden and Somerset’s George Bartlett all fell without scoring.

Essex allrounder Callum Taylor continued his good pre-tournament form by making 36 from 51 balls including three fours and a six, sharing a fifth-wicket stand of 53 with Sam Curran.

But when Curran went for 29 from 44 balls England were 76 for seven and facing humiliation.

Taylor, who made a number of important contributions with the bat in last summer’s home series against Australia, salvaged some respectability by top-scoring with 42 from 51 balls including two fours and two sixes.

Yorkshire’s Jared Warner, who had only bowled three overs, provided stubborn support in an eighth-wicket stand of 52, and went on to 16 from 71 balls.

Hampshire’s Mason Crane, who had conceded 55 from his eight overs, was last out for 12, only the fifth England batsman to make double figures.

England had won their previous two warm-up games against Namibia on Saturday and South Africa in Dubai last week.

Now their long build-up is over, and they begin their World Cup campaign with the first of three group games against tournament debutants Fiji on Wednesday.