Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) secretary Devajit Saikia justified the team’s refusal saying that India cannot accept the trophy from a person who is “waging a war against the country.” On team’s decision to play the tournament despite massive criticism of engagement with Pakistan in the backdrop of Pahalgam terror attack, he said that the Board has followed the policy set by the Indian government. He said, “ … when it is a bilateral tournament, India is not going to play against Pakistan or any other hostile country and BCCI has been doing it for last 12 to 15 years.”

It clearly shows that the decision to refuse the trophy was not entirely of the team, but was directed by the Modi government. The opportunistic behaviour was a dominant behaviour rather than protest against Pakistan is clear from another statement of Saikia, who said, “And now the government has said that in multinational tournaments –Asia cup is a multinational tournament – or an international tournament where a lot of other countries are also involved … we have to play. … Otherwise, our other games will suffer or the federation will be banned by international federations, so we followed the policy of the central government. We participated in spite of the fact that there are some protests or some resistance from some quarters.”

India’s such behaviour is neither appreciated in the diplomatic arena nor by the people having maturity in the matters of dealing with an inimical country, though India touted its action as protest against Pakistan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi extended his “heartfelt congratulations to the Indian cricket team for their resounding victory in Asia Cup 2025” and hash tagged it as Operation Sindoor on the games field calling “Outcome is the same – India wins!” What makes people puzzled is why in the first place the Government of India led by PM Modi allowed India to play the game which was led by ACC under the presidentship of Mohsin Naqvi, and lastly did not allow the team to receive the trophy from him when it won!

India knew fully well that ACC is led by the leader from Pakistan MohsinNaqvi. Had India any problem with him or Pakistan, the country should have protested by not playing the game when he was presiding. One fails to understand what kind of nationalism was shown by Modi government at that time? Thereafter what happened was ridiculous, since under the Modi government’s directions the sportsman’s spirit was turned in jingoism in the name of nationalism.

There was a stark example of this. Indian team had refused to shake hands with the Pakistan team members in any of the three games they played, either at the toss or after the matches. India was criticized for this uncivil and jingoistic behaviour in the name of nationalism, since no Pakistani team member is known to have any involvement in terrorist activities of Pakistan against India. Pahalgam incident and the Operation Sindoor have nothing to do with the cricketers, and therefore not handshaking with good people or sportspersons from an enemy country is unwise, on several counts. However, India did it simply because the cricket players were from Pakistan.

Everybody knows that it is political leadership that take decisions on war against other countries, not the common men. Why then show humiliating behaviour to common men? Naturally, such a behaviour of Indian team was criticized by Pakistan coach Mike Hesson and captain Agha, and also by many others. Nevertheless, India’s position did not change. It is in this backdrop, India’s stance of not accepting a trophy from Naqvi was expected.

India beat Pakistan by five wickets in the final on Sunday, September 28, 2025 in Dubai. Then BCCI secretary Saikia said, “We have decided not to take the Asia Cup trophy from ACC chairman, who happens to be one of the main leaders of Pakistan.” Nevertheless, he added “it does not mean that the gentleman will take away the trophy with him along with the medals.” He considered it unfortunate and hoped on behalf of the team that the trophy and the medals will be returned to India as soon as possible. He also said that in the next ICC conference to be held in November in Dubai they would be launching a very serious and very strong protest against the act of the ACC chairperson.

It is also worth noting that on the organization’s website on Saturday, September 27, 2025, an information was uploaded which stated that Naqvi intended to hand over the trophy to the winners. When the presentation ceremony began, some of the Indian sportspersons received individual awards from other dignitaries on the stage.

Everybody noticed that neither the Indian players on the stage taking trophies from other dignitaries acknowledged Naqvi nor Naqvi did applaud the Indian players receiving medals. Indian team, however, celebrated their win on the podium with no actual trophy in sight but an imaginary trophy.

“What India have done this tournament is very disappointing” said Pakistan captain Salman Agha, adding “they are not disrespecting us by not shaking hands, they are disrespecting cricket.” On refusing to accept the trophy by India, he said, “I don’t want to use harsh words but they’ve been very disrespectful.” His voice was a sane voice, far from the inimical voice of the political leadership of Pakistan.

When the Power Game turns ugly, common and good people have hope for peace only through hearing and respecting sane voices in both the countries. India must navigate away from war to peace, and Pakistan also must stop using every occasion against India, as it has done recently in the United Nation’s General Assembly only to receive a strong rebuttal from India. Sportsman’s spirit must not be lost in jingoism. (IPA Service)