New Delhi: It was a nail-biting finish to the Asia Cup as Tilak Varma played a match-winning inning of 69 runs, helping India bring home their ninth Asia Cup title after defeating Pakistan by five wickets on Sunday in Dubai. But the real drama started after the game.
Almost 20 minutes after Rinku Singh hit the winning runs, there was no sign of the post-match presentation. Pakistan’s cricketers had returned to the dressing room, and the Indian team was sitting on one side of the ground. The Indian team had refused to take the trophy and their individual medals from Asia Cricket Council (ACC) chief Mohsin Naqvi, who is also the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman and the country’s Interior Minister.
With Naqvi standing insisting on giving away the trophy himself, there was a stalemate, with no one knowing what was going on. The Indian players were ready to receive the trophy from Vice Chairman of the Emirates Cricket Board Khalid Al Zarooni. But Naqvi refused to give in. As a result, there was no presentation, and the trophy was taken away by officials.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulatory message for the team also came with an Operation Sindoor reference.
“Operation Sindoor on the games field. The outcome is the same—India wins! Congrats to our cricketers,” PM Modi wrote in a post on X.
#OperationSindoor on the games field.
Outcome is the same – India wins!
Congrats to our cricketers.
— Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) September 28, 2025
The cricketers posted a series of images on social media celebrating the win but with an invisible trophy. In the images, they were pretending to hold a trophy.
‘Never seen a champion not getting trophy’
It is said that the tipping point for Indian cricketers were certain posts by Naqvi on X. One repost, titled Final Day, featured Pakistan players, including skipper Salman Agha and pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi, dressed in flight suits against a backdrop of fighter jets.
In another post, Naqvi shared an image of Cristiano Ronaldo depicting a crashing plane.
Earlier, during a previous encounter in the Asia Cup, Pakistani bowler Haris Rauf was also seen enacting planes crashing while he was fielding on the boundary line.
“I have never seen a champion (team) not getting a trophy. We deserved it. The real trophies are my 14 colleagues and they will stay in my memory,” India captain Surya Kumar Yadav said in the post-match media briefing.
India’s cricketers only stepped on to the podium at the Dubai International Stadium to receive individual awards from other dignitaries. They posed for a group picture holding an invisible trophy and celebrating the win.
This was the third encounter between the two sides in the tournament. India had registered comfortable wins in both the matches. But this long-standing cricket rivalry took a drastic turn after India refused to shake hands with the Pakistani players at their first game in Dubai.
And, later, Suryakumar dedicated the win to the families of victims of the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people.
Days after the Pahalgam attack, India had retaliated with Operation Sindoor, targeting terror infrastructure in PoK and Pakistan.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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