A yr later, Indian cricket might as soon as once more face a well-recognized Mohsin Naqvi problem in the identical metropolis of Dubai, with the Girls’s Asia Cup set to start there subsequent week. And that raises an apparent query: what occurs if the Indian staff goes all the way in which to the ultimate?
Naqvi stays the president of the Asian Cricket Council (ACC), which suggests he might as soon as once more discover himself on the presentation dais after the match finale.
To know why that might turn out to be a difficulty, it’s value revisiting what unfolded in Dubai final yr, when town hosted the boys’s Asia Cup. The Suryakumar Yadav-led Indian staff, who beat Pakistan within the remaining, refused each to shake fingers with their opponents and to simply accept the trophy from Naqvi within the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror assault and the following navy confrontation between India and Pakistan.
The choice led to a chronic delay within the presentation ceremony, after which Naqvi left the venue with the trophy. Greater than a yr later, it has nonetheless not been handed over to the Indian staff.
Naqvi’s place made the episode significantly contentious. Aside from being the ACC chief, he additionally heads the Pakistan Cricket Board and serves as Pakistan’s Inside Minister. Throughout the match, he repeatedly criticised the Indian staff’s determination to refuse handshakes with Pakistan, whom they confronted thrice, together with the ultimate.
The Girls’s Asia Cup begins on August 28, with the ultimate scheduled for September 13. India and Pakistan have been drawn in the identical group, guaranteeing not less than one assembly between the 2 sides.
Nevertheless, not like the boys’s match, the ladies’s competitors is unlikely to provide a number of India-Pakistan clashes. A second assembly can solely come within the remaining, ought to each groups progress that far.
Pakistan have by no means gained the Girls’s Asia Cup. They’ve reached the ultimate solely twice, in 2012 and 2016, whereas they had been eradicated within the group stage in 2018 and reached the semi-finals in 2022 and 2024. India, in the meantime, are probably the most profitable staff within the match’s historical past, having gained seven titles and reached the ultimate in all 9 editions.
Pakistan do have a sensible probability of reaching the semi-finals, with lower-ranked Thailand and Hong Kong additionally in Group A. However a second India-Pakistan assembly would rely on each groups navigating the knockout stage, with Sri Lanka or Bangladesh doubtlessly standing in Pakistan’s manner within the semi-finals.
That brings the match again to the query that might dominate the closing phases: what occurs if India, the defending champions and finalists in each version, win the Girls’s Asia Cup and Naqvi is on the presentation dais?
Would Harmanpreet Kaur and her staff comply with the precedent set by the boys’s aspect final yr?
The ladies’s staff has already adopted the no-handshake coverage in current conferences with Pakistan, together with on the World Cup and within the T20 World Cup this yr.
The BCCI’s place on a possible trophy presentation involving Naqvi shouldn’t be identified. Nevertheless, the board has made it clear on a number of events since final yr that there can be no trade of pleasantries between the 2 groups.
For now, the reply stays unclear. One risk is that Naqvi might select to not be the official handing over the trophy if India win. However that isn’t what occurred final yr, regardless of India having made their place on the presentation ceremony clear even earlier than the boys’s remaining.
The BCCI later tried to interrupt the impasse. Naqvi, nonetheless, maintained that he was prepared handy the trophy to the Indian staff and as a substitute proposed a separate presentation ceremony at his workplace in Dubai, offered the gamers got here to gather it from him.
BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia additionally met Naqvi on the sidelines of an ICC assembly and later mentioned the “ice had been damaged” between the 2 sides. The trophy problem, nonetheless, stays unresolved.
