India is stirring fresh controversy as its cricket board announced plans to take the Asia Cup 2025 final trophy dispute to the International Cricket Council (ICC).
The closing ceremony of the continental tournament faced a delay in Dubai on Sunday after the Indian team refused to collect the winner’s trophy from Asian Cricket Council (ACC) President Mohsin Naqvi.
The move reportedly came on the directives of the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI); however, Naqvi — who is also the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) — remained firm that he would present the trophy as the ACC president.
BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia has now confirmed the same to Indian media outlets.
“We decided not to take the trophy from the ACC chairman, who happens to be one of the main leaders of Pakistan,” Indian media outlets quoted Saikia as saying.
The dispute resulted in a brief delay in the presentation ceremony, which saw Pakistan players collecting their medals as the runners-up.
Presenter Simon Doull confirmed the conclusion of the post-match ceremony without the winning team receiving the trophy.
“I have been informed by the ACC that the Indian cricket team will not be collecting their awards tonight. So that does conclude the post-match presentation,” informed Doull.
India players Tilak Varma, Abhishek Sharma, and Kuldeep Yadav, however, turned up to accept their individual awards.
Subsequently, the organisers took the Asia Cup trophy with them, leaving the Indian team waiting to get their hands on the title trophy.
Naqvi’s insistence on presenting the trophy to the winning team came despite the Indian team’s recent acts of dragging politics into the game, with Indian skipper Suryakumar Yadav refusing a customary handshake with Pakistan’s Salman Ali Agha in their group stage game.
He repeated the same in their following two games, an act which has been condemned by pundits across the world.
The BCCI secretary has now confirmed their plans to file a complaint against Naqvi over the trophy row in the next meeting of the ICC, scheduled in November.
The BCCI secretary spoke in the same lines as Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who equated the cricket victory to “Operation Sindoor”, the name given to India’s series of strikes in Pakistan, which resulted in the martyrdom of several civilians.
“#OperationSindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same – India wins! Congrats to our cricketers,” Modi wrote in a post on X following the Asia Cup final.
Adamant on bringing politics and war into the sport, Saikia said that the Indian “armed forces delivered in the border area. Now the same thing has been repeated in Dubai”.
