Who is the Worst Team in Champions Trophy 2025? Pakistan or England?
One of the most prestigious one-day tournament, ICC Champions Trophy showcases some of the finest talents in in the cricket domain. The hype and excitement for the 2025 edition had made some of the teams’ fan favourites in advance, just for the sheer squad line up they had.
With Pakistan as the host for this year’s season and eight formidable world class teams contesting for the ICC Trophy, the edition had all the ingredients to produce a masterclass dish and impress the audiences with this arrangement. However, two of the strongest teams Pakistan and England, both now eliminated from the competition have utterly disappointed the fans with their forgettable performances.
Let us see which of the two teams deserves the title for being the worst team in this year’s ODI tournament.
After all the preparation that the Pakistan Cricket Board has put up to host an ICC event after a long gap of 29 years, their cricket team underperformed massively. England too had a horrible campaign and received an exit punch courtesy a high-spirited Afghanistan’s performance in their clash against each other.
As we dissect the overall performances of both the countries in terms of batting, bowling and fielding; the results are indeed shocking and unexpected.
1) Better Batting Side?
Talking about Pakistan, Rizwan opted to bowl first against New Zealand in their match against each other. While in the match with India, the opponents decided to bat first. On both the occasions, chasing and defending the runs proved to be unachievable tasks for the hosting nation. The entire top and middle order failed in the first encounter, with only Babar Azam and Khushdil Shah acing as saving graces with their 64 and 69 odd runs respectively.
Against India, Saud Shakeel and Rizwan did put a partnership on board but it wasn’t sufficient against a pioneering team like ours. The Indian side literally chased the total with complete ease and had 45 balls to spare! As for England, they were certainly better than team Pakistan. Their batting was on target against Australia when they scored a massive 351 runs. Ben Duckett emerged as a star with his stellar knock of 165 runs, but it wasn’t enough against a team like Australia.
In their match against Afghanistan, the underdogs of the tournament, they couldn’t chase down 326 and despite their strong batting line up, nothing could work to neutralize the fiery Afghan bowling attack. Ibrahim Zadran’s 177 and five wickets by Azmatullah Omarzai helped Afghanistan knock England out of the Champions Trophy with a thrilling eight-run victory.
2) Better Bowling Side?
Pakistan’s strength has known to be their bowling unit; but did the spectators get to witness it in this year’s CT? Certainly not. The famous trio of Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi, and Naseem Shah have disappointed with their out of form bowling, giving away runs to the opposition without any drive to excel. None of the pace bowlers have averaged less than 42, a hard to swallow figure.
As for England, their bowlers turned out to be quite predictable. The pacers and spinners’ unit could not defend 351 against Australia, despite being international level players. Their bowling unit did lack a methodical plan. Though on paper Pakistan’s bowling unit might look more deadly but England was the better side comparatively.
3) Better Fielding Side?
One area that needs every individual to perform throughout the duration of an innings is the fielding. For the Men in Green, this area also lacked the intent and agility; the fielders came across unfit and not active enough to control the outflow of runs from their side. There were a series of overthrows, boundary slips, catch drops and lack of coordination amongst the players to limit the runs from their side.
For team England, their fielding looked much more promising compared to Pakistan in this area also. Apart from one catch-drop by Archer of Carey, and an instance of misfielding by Mark Wood who left limping midway against Afghanistan, the English cricketers displayed enhanced coordination and agility.
My Perspective:
It is safe to conclude that England were certainly a better team than Pakistan in the tournament, though the complete performance was below par than their standards. While England still has one game remaining in their ongoing campaign, their chances of making to the semi-final have been destroyed. On the other hand, Pakistan’s last league game against Bangladesh was abandoned and their journey too came to an abrupt end.
Its only apt that the coaches, management and players of the two reputed sides go back to their drawing board and re-work the strategies to emerge stronger from the devastating performances. They must turn things around in their stride, with a lot of expectations to be matched up to.
