After England were eliminated from the group stages of the ICC Champions Trophy 2025, the side's captain, Jos Buttler, took centre stage and made the bold decision to announce that he would be stepping down from England's ODI captaincy after the end of their Champions Trophy campaign.
It is interesting to note that England had lost their first two games of the Champions Trophy 2025. Furthermore, the side had come into the tournament on the back of a 3-0 ODI series loss to the Indian team as well. Seeing the side's subpar results in the format as of late, Buttler decided to step down. Talking about the same, former India cricketer Aakash Chopra took centre stage and opined that the decision to step down makes a lot of sense.
"Buttler has said that he is done, that he is leaving as the team is not doing well. You won the 2022 T20 World Cup but didn't even qualify for the last rounds in the 2023 World Cup. You reached the semi-finals of the 2024 T20 World Cup, but you haven't really beaten a great team," Aakash Chopra said in a video on his YouTube channel.
"Here, the losing streak was not ending at all. So some changes are bound to happen in such a scenario. So Jos Buttler is out. Nasser Hussain said a very good thing about him that he is a world beater as a batter but he is just okay as a captain. If that's the case, you took a lot out of his batting due to the captaincy burden because he is not the same batter anymore," Chopra added.
Chopra also talked about how the responsibility of captaincy was negatively affecting Buttler's performances as a batter as well. It is worth noting that England are winless in the Champions Trophy 2025, losing their first two games of the season to Australia and Afghanistan. The side has put in a subpar show in their final group stage game against South Africa as well.