Mohsin Naqvi and missing Asia Cup: Time for BCCI to end the farce

India won the Asia Cup on Sunday night. Again. And again it left without the Asia Cup trophy.

The women’s team just crushed Sri Lanka by 72 runs in Dubai to become champion for a record eighth time. However, when the moment came to collect the award, there was no Indian team on the presentation stage, no trophy in Harmanpreet Kaur’s hands and no photograph of the Indian champions lifting the silverware. A year after the men’s team endured the same farce, the Asian Cricket Council somehow managed to repeat it. The men’s team is actually yet to receive the trophy, which is said to be kept at the ACC headquarters in Dubai.

This is not the shame of India. This is ACC.

This is no longer a diplomatic spat that can be brushed aside as an unfortunate by-product of India-Pakistan tensions. Now this is a repeated failure of the ACC administration. The same thing happened to the Indian men’s team in 2025. A year later, when everyone knew exactly where the fault line lay, the governing body allowed it to happen again.

Once can be dismissed as an extraordinary diplomatic mess. Twice is institutional failure. The Indian team posed without the Asia Cup trophy. Courtesy: BCCI Women X

This is why the Indian Cricket Board should now stop merely rejecting the trophy and start questioning its participation in ACC events altogether.

TOTALLY AVOID

The crucial detail from Sunday’s episode is that it was not a spontaneous act of defiance by a group of Indian players who suddenly decided they did not want to share the stage with Naqvi. India’s position has already been communicated. The BCCI made it clear that India would not accept the trophy from Naqvi, but also offered a solution.

One was for ACC Vice Chairman Khalid Al Zarooni to present the trophy. Another was for a representative of the winning council to hand it over in line with recent practice, sources told India Today.

So there was a way out.

The trophy could have gone to the champions. The presentation could take place. ACC could have avoided another ugly spectacle. Instead, Naqvi remained the designated host and India was unwilling to accept the trophy from him. The stalemate ended the same as the year before: the champions did not receive the championship trophy.

SHOULD NAQVI REMAIN ON THE BELT?

Mohsin Naqvi has been at the center of controversy during the last two editions of the Asia Cup. Courtesy: AP

This is where Naqvi’s responsibility as ACC president cannot be ignored.

He has a right to his position. He has the right to participate in the final of the Asian Cup. He is authorized to stand alongside other dignitaries at an ACC event. But the office he holds carries a responsibility greater than any one individual’s desire to direct the trophy presentation. The ACC president’s first duty at the end of the tournament is to make sure the champions get what they won.

If the ACC president knew that India’s position had not changed, and if alternatives were placed before him, why was the solution not to ensure that the trophy went to the winning team?

This was not an unforeseen problem. The warning came in huge letters as early as September 2025.

The men’s final descended into an extraordinary stalemate after India made it clear that they would not get the trophy from Naqvi. The presentation was delayed, the trophy disappeared from the stage and India celebrated without it. Suryakumar Yadav called it something he had never seen in his years of playing and watching cricket: a champion team being denied a hard-earned trophy. India also said they were willing to get him from an Emirates Cricket Board official, but that alternative did not materialise.

The ACC therefore had a whole year to ensure that the farce was not repeated.

It happened again.

And this time it happened anyway everyone knew exactly what was coming. The possibility of another confrontation was discussed before the women’s final, as Naqvi was expected to attend the closing ceremony. The question was not whether this problem could occur. The question was what the ACC would do if India won.

Now we have the answer.

Nothing.

That is not good enough for the governing body of Asian cricket.

BCCI BOOTH

Women’s head coach Amol Muzumdar’s reaction after the final was telling.

“This is the stand taken by the BCCI and we stand by it. This tournament is over for us. We are the champions,” he told the press in Dubai on Sunday.

“That’s good enough. It was on the big board where India champions Asia Cup 2026. This tournament is officially over for us,” he added.

Players, quite rightly, may have this opinion. They won the tournament on the field. No one can take that success away from them.

But the ACC shouldn’t take solace in that.

The fact that India can live without a trophy does not absolve the ACC of presenting it.

A trophy is not just a piece of silver. It is part of the ceremony, archive and memory of sporting success. It’s a photo that gets framed, an image that lives in locker rooms and yearbooks, a physical symbol passed down from one champion to another. If the organizer cannot put the trophy in the hands of the team that won the competition, something has fundamentally gone wrong.

And Sunday night showed just how far that has gone.

Naqvi endured embarrassment when a section of the crowd shouted “trophy chor” as he left the field. This is not a time for celebration, regardless of which side of the India-Pakistan divide one occupies. It was an ugly end to what should have been a celebration of women’s cricket. However, even that could have been completely avoided.

The ACC president didn’t have to put himself, his organization, or the tournament in that position. You could have found another moderator. He could make a trophy bigger than himself.

Instead, the trophy presentation became the story.

This cannot become the new normal.

BCCI NEEDS TO ACT STRICTLY

BCCI Secretary Devajit Saikia was present in Dubai to watch the final of the Women’s Asia Cup. Courtesy: Reuters

And this is where the BCCI needs to go beyond protest statements. India should clearly and formally tell the ACC that if Naqvi remains at the helm and insists on being the person to hand over the Asia Cup trophy to India, the Indian team should not participate in the ACC competitions.

This is a serious step. It should not be taken lightly. But the ACC must understand the gravity of what happened twice.

India’s participation is not just another entry on the tournament list. India is the biggest commercial draw for Asian cricket. Their matches increase broadcast viewership, sponsorship interest, advertising value and digital engagement. In particular, India-Pakistan matches are among the most commercially valuable matches in the sport. Take India out of the Asia Cup and the ACC won’t lose just one team. It loses a significant part of the commercial proposition of the tournament.

That is India’s leverage.

And it should be used responsibly, not thoughtlessly.

The request doesn’t have to be complicated. India should not ask the ACC to rewrite its constitution, remove Naqvi from office or turn every Asia Cup into a political referendum. It should require one basic sporting principle: champions must get their trophy.

If the ACC can guarantee it, India plays. If that is not possible, India should stay away.

The argument is no longer whether India likes Mohsin Naqvi. At issue is whether the ACC is able to separate the office of its president from the administration of its tournament. Naqvi may remain ACC president. But no president, secretary, chairman or dignitary should become more important than the team that just won the competition.

The men’s team did not receive their trophy in 2025. The women’s team did not receive theirs in 2026. The second incident made it impossible to disqualify the first as a one-off.

The ICC should keep a close eye on this. World cricket’s governing body cannot be expected to judge every India-Pakistan standoff, nor should it. But when a major tournament ends twice and the champions can’t claim the trophy, it’s time to ask whether the sport’s governing bodies have the right protocols in place for such situations.

That’s enough. Someone has to stop this farce.

– The end

Issued by:

sabyasachi chowdhury

Published on:

14 Sep 2026 06:30 IST