The story of India's 72-run win over Sri Lanka in the Women's Asia Cup 2026 final did not end with the final ball. The trophy presentation at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium was delayed by nearly 50 minutes, and when it eventually went ahead, India's players did not come forward to collect the trophy from Mohsin Naqvi, the Asian Cricket Council chairman who is also Pakistan's interior minister.
Runners-up Sri Lanka received their medals as normal, but the winners' trophy was left uncollected by India's squad. Team management said the decision was made in solidarity with the victims of the April 2025 Pahalgam attack, in which 26 people were killed in Indian-administered Kashmir. It is the second time this has happened at an event under Naqvi's chairmanship: India's men's team similarly declined to accept the Asia Cup trophy from him after winning the men's tournament in 2025.
BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia addressed the incident afterward, saying the controversy did not originate from the Indian side and that "winning the tournament is what truly matters." Head coach Amol Muzumdar confirmed the team had acted on the board's directions. Captain Harmanpreet Kaur was interviewed separately from the trophy ceremony rather than as part of the standard post-match presentation, telling broadcasters: "I think we played to our standards because that's what we discussed when we came here. We have certain standards, and we have to keep matching them every day."
The trophy episode was not the first flashpoint of the competition. When India played Pakistan in the group stage on September 5 in Dubai, captains Harmanpreet Kaur and Fatima Sana did not shake hands at the toss, consistent with a no-handshake approach the BCCI has maintained in India-Pakistan fixtures since the Pahalgam attack. Sunday's ceremony extended that same stance to the presentation stage, in a tournament India ultimately won by beating Sri Lanka rather than Pakistan in the final.
Stripped of the presentation dispute, India's eighth Women's Asia Cup title stands on its own — built on a record opening partnership and a bowling performance that gave Sri Lanka no route into the chase. But the ceremony delay means the tournament's immediate aftermath is being discussed as much for what happened off the field as for the cricket, a repeat of the pattern from the men's event a year earlier. With both India's men's and women's squads now shifting focus to the Asian Games in Japan later this month, the trophy dispute is unlikely to affect team preparation, though it adds to a wider backdrop of strained cricketing ties between the two boards that has shaped scheduling and conduct at ACC events since 2025.
More coverage of India's Asia Cup campaign and the tournament's individual records is available on SportGod's blog, with live scores from ongoing tournaments on SportGod's live matches page.
The sequence of events, the BCCI's statement and the captains' comments are verified against same-day reporting, current as of September 14, 2026.
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