Legendary cricketers Sunil Gavaskar from India and Pakistan’s Wasim Akram criticized the England team after their loss to Afghanistan by 8 wickets on Wednesday. This loss also resulted in England being knocked out of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, as they had lost to Australia in their first match.

Ever since winning the 2019 World Cup and 2022 T20 World Cup, the England team has been performing poorly in white-ball cricket. They have now suffered six consecutive defeats, the first time England have lost so many matches since September 2009.

When analyzing what is wrong with the England cricket team, batting legend Gavaskar and pace great Akram stated that England should quit "blaming everything" such as India playing all of their matches in Dubai, and instead reflect on what is wrong with their system.

“They will still come and start mourning the next morning. See they cannot lose. If they lose there has to be an excuse and the excuse cannot be that they weren’t better that day or the other team was better, they will start blaming everything. They will start blaming India also because India is playing all their matches in Dubai and why are we not playing our matches at one venue,” Gavaskar said on the DP World dressing room show.

In agreement with Gavaskar, Wasim Akram stated that England's complaints over any alleged advantage India had received ought to have been made before to the start of the Champions Trophy 2025, rather than halfway through the competition when their results started to turn against them.

“Their two commentators, our good friends, Michael Atherton and Nasser Hussain have said that but, I said, you have to make these noises before the tournament not after the tournament,” Akram said.

Gavaskar was quick to add that it was the duty of England’s representatives to raise these concerns with the ICC and talking about it now doesn’t make sense.

“Their representatives at ICC should be asking why, but the other question is can you go into a tournament without India? India would have said no, then what happens?” asked the former India captain.

Another legendary Pakistani speedster Waqar Younis said that the morale of the England team is really low which has become a hindrance for the former world champions.

“Overall, when you look at Lahore pitch, you think 325 is very much chaseable, but England’s mindset with recent few games, they can’t win against anything. They are struggling against all teams, on different pitches, they lost to India recently, they lost to South Africa, it has been a struggle.

They never had the confidence. There was only one man standing (Root). That one man could have won them the game but they (Afghanistan) were persistent, they never lost hope and they kept coming back at them,” Younis added.

All three teams—Afghanistan, Australia, and South Africa—are still in the running for the Champions Trophy 2025 semi-finals, despite England's elimination.