After Nepal’s narrow defeat to England in their T20 World Cup 2026 match, former India player-turned-commentator Aakash Chopra has questioned the top-ranked teams for not helping associate nations or lower-ranked teams grow as well. Notably, England beat Nepal by 4 runs in a T20 World Cup 2026 Group C game in Mumbai on Sunday, February 8 as well.

In a video shared on his YouTube channel, ‘Aakash Chopra,’ he said, “I am going to talk about what we are doing with associate or slightly lower-ranked teams. It’s token participation. It’s a lip-service job. This is not an appreciation post, that they do well, and then you will remember them after two years. You will say, ‘Well done, thank you, but we won’t talk to you after this.”

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“They came to the wedding and you forgot them after that. You don’t even know where they are for the next two years. The lower-ranked teams have done well in every single game, but that won’t remain the story, as we hear this story once in two years. We celebrate it, talk about it, and then we completely forget about it. It doesn’t matter to us at all. We move on. We go to our homes and play our bilaterals and tournaments. No one bothers about them. When I see them crumbling under pressure, being unable to close the moments, or unable to maintain the pressure, these are things that happen,” he again shared.

However, Aakash Chopra also stated that associate teams won’t learn unless they play against good teams regularly as well. He also praised the Nepal spinners for restricting the England batters in their T20 World Cup 2026 match as well.

“Nepal bowled well. I saw leg-spin for the first time in this tournament, whether it was Kushal Bhurtel’s or Sandeep Lamichhane’s, where the ball turned. Sher Malla picked up a wicket with his first ball on debut. He dismissed Phil Salt. Spin grabbed the game. Of course, Jacob Bethell played well, and Harry Brook batted well, but in the end, because of Will Jacks’ sixes, this team reached a total from where the match could have been won. However, Dipendra Singh Airee, Rohit Paudel, Kushal Bhurtel and Lokesh Bam batted well. Just couldn’t cross the line. I felt genuinely bad,” Aakash Chopra concluded.