Aakash Chopra exposes England and Australia's hypocrisy on ‘custodians of cricket’ claim

Aakash Chopra slams Australia and England Cricket: Australia has potentially been knocked out of the 2026 T20 World Cup after their defeat against Sri Lanka by 8 wickets on Monday. The Aussies have been struggling in this World Cup campaign after two of their premier fast bowlers, Josh Hazelwood and Pat Cummins, were ruled out due to various injuries.

The Aussies, after their defeat against Zimbabwe, made the knockout qualification difficult. They are yet to beat the Cheverons in the T20 World Cup format. In two meeting Zimbabwe has won both their games against the Aussies. After the loss, former India opener Aakash Chopra has called Australia and England into question about their being the "custodians of cricket."

Aakash Chopra criticises the Australia and England Cricket

Aakash Chopra, while speaking via X (formerly Twitter), said, "You point fingers at India, but do you ever look back at yourselves? I’m asking this question to England and Australia because they claim to be the custodians of the game — the caretakers who are deeply involved in and care a lot about cricket."

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"Let’s talk about the associate nations and the full member nations like Afghanistan, Ireland, and Zimbabwe. Five years is a big enough sample size. Australia — how much have you played against them? When you lose to Zimbabwe, it suddenly becomes a fantastic story."

"But if we look at the last five years and remove ICC events, which are compulsory to play, do you know how many matches you’ve played? A total of six in five years in ODIs and T20s. That’s not good enough."

England cricket does not help to grow associate nations

Aakash Chopra also pointed out that England nearly got defeated by Nepal and Italy. Aakash said, "Now look at England. In the last five years, they’ve played only nine matches outside ICC events. Believe it or not — one team has played six in five years, the other only nine. So how are you improving the game? How are you embracing it? How are you taking care of it?"

Aakash Chopra further added, "Now consider what India has done in this period. In total, India has played 36 matches, with 23 of them outside ICC events. If someone argues that these extra matches come from the Asia Cup because of regional advantages, then even after removing ACC and ICC multi-nation tournaments, India still has 16 such matches. One team has six, another has nine — India still has 16."

Here's the video

Are Australia and England really "custodians of cricket" like they claim? Let's take a look at what they've done to spread the game by playing associate nations in the last 5 years. Do you think full member nations should do more to grow the game?#Aakashvani #Cricket pic.twitter.com/8RKh6ABQQw

— Aakash Chopra (@cricketaakash) February 17, 2026

Then, Aakash Chopra finally concluded saying, "So where are you? What is your contribution? Ask yourselves this question. What happens instead is lip service every two years. When an upset occurs, everyone suddenly wakes up and talks about associate nations — Zimbabwe, Ireland, Scotland — and how well they play."

"Then we forget about them for two years. Why? Because England and Australia don’t really care. The numbers show that over the last five years, they don’t play — they just talk."

England and Australia's cricket is not at their best

England has qualified for the next rounds. However, they have a grim chance of qualifying for the semi-finals as they will be playing the Super 8 matches in Sri Lanka, where the pitches have grip and spin.

Australia will be up against Oman and would like Zimbabwe to lose both of their remaining matches against Ireland and Sri Lanka, respectively, to qualify for the Super 8s. If Zimbabwe wins today against Ireland, Australia will be knocked out.

Also Read: 'Pakistan asked Rohit Sharma if he could captain and bat for them'