DUBAI – The exciting India vs. Pakistan Asia Cup final on Sunday ended with a strange and never-before-seen post-match argument. India won their ninth Asia Cup title with a close five-wicket victory, but the celebrations were dampened by the fact that the championship trophy was not given to the winning team.
The Indian squad was tense because they didn’t want to accept the trophy from Mohsin Naqvi, who is both the head of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) and Pakistan’s interior minister. Sources indicate that the Indian team, led by captain Suryakumar Yadav, told the organizers ahead of time that they would not accept the award from Naqvi because they thought he was anti-India and had made incendiary comments on social media recently.
The ceremony to give out the awards was delayed by more than an hour, and both teams were said to be standing far away from the podium. After a stalemate, Naqvi reportedly left the stage with the winner’s trophy and medals. The Indian team then celebrated on the platform without any silverware.
Suryakumar Yadav talked about the incident with The Indian Express, saying, “Trophy leke bhaag gaye woh” (They ran away with the trophy). That’s what I saw. He said that the BCCI did not tell his squad what to do; they made the decision themselves. “Nobody from the Government or the BCCI told us anything… We made that choice on our own.
The BCCI has vehemently criticized what Naqvi did. Devajit Saikia, the secretary of the BCCI, has said that the board will file a formal complaint against Naqvi at the next International Cricket Council (ICC) conference in November. Saikia said the event was “very unfortunate, very unsporting,” and asked that the medals and trophy be sent back to India.
The final was already tense because of things that happened before the play, including the teams not shaking hands. But the political drama that happened at the end took over.