Former England Spinner Slams English Teams For Its Arrogance: ‘It Frustrates Me’

Retired England spinner Alex Hartley has slammed the attitude of both the Men’s and Women’s English Cricket teams, claiming that she’s been left frustrated by the ‘arrogance’ shown by the sides despite not delivering on the results front.

It’s been a horror few weeks for England cricket. At the start of this month, the Women’s team slipped to an embarrassing 16-0 defeat in the Ashes, losing every single match. And now the Men’s side have exited the ICC Champions Trophy 2025 in the group stages to make it consecutive group stage exits in 50-over ICC tournaments. 

Hartley believes that English cricket, currently, is in a ‘sad place’.

“I think the frustrating thing for me when I watch English cricket at the minute, in both teams, is the arrogance of the players and of the staff and the messaging that we want to entertain, we don't care about results,” Hartley said on BBC TMS.

“But you have to win for people to be entertained because the public, for some reason, has fallen out of love with English cricket. It's a really sad place for England men and England women to be in.”

Recently, Ravichandran Ashwin was also in the news for slamming Ben Duckett and Ben Stokes for their ‘don’t care’ attitude. Ashwin insisted that England were hiding behind excuses and criticised the Three Lions for the dismissive way in which they spoke in public.

Hartley, meanwhile, has been very vocal about criticising both the England Men’s and Women’s sides. Recently, during the Women’s Ashes, she got into a civil war with a few English players after Sophie Ecclestone refused to give her an interview after Hartley's comments that criticised the general fitness of the England women’s team.