India Women Win an Eighth Asia Cup Without the Trophy

India’s women beat Sri Lanka by 72 runs on September 13 to win an eighth Asia Cup, then left Dubai without the cup. Head coach Amol Muzumdar said the BCCI had already chosen that ending, and the title on the stadium board was enough.

The 2025 men’s snub is now the working rule. When Mohsin Naqvi, the Asian Cricket Council president, is on the stage, India take the championship and not the metal.

A 24-Ball Fifty and a 72-Run Win

At Dubai International Cricket Stadium, India chose to bat and never let Sri Lanka into the final. Openers Shafali Verma and Smriti Mandhana put on 129 in 12.5 overs, a stand that turned a rematch of the 2024 Dambulla final into a chase Sri Lanka could not start.

Shafali hit 68 off 39 balls with nine fours and two sixes. Her fifty came off 24 balls, the fastest in Women’s T20 Asia Cup history, and it was her 21st T20I fifty. Mandhana made 59 off 39 with five fours and three sixes, then was run out, her third mix-up of the tournament.

India had been 57 without loss in the powerplay and 98 without loss at the halfway mark. Seventeen-year-old Chamudi Praboda broke the stand in the 13th over. Three wickets then fell for seven runs, with captain Harmanpreet Kaur making 14 off 14 and Richa Ghosh 17 off 13, before G Kamalini finished unbeaten on 15 off five balls, including a six, as India closed on 183 for 5.

THE DUBAI FINAL IN NUMBERS

• India: 183 for 5 in 20 overs after winning the toss.
• Sri Lanka: 111 all out in 20 overs, Athapaththu 36 off 32.
• The gap: 72 runs, with India unbeaten through the event.
• The record: an eighth title, and a 10th straight final.

Imesha Dulani drove the first ball for four and was bowled by Kranti Gaud on the fourth. Chamari Athapaththu and Vishmi Gunaratne added 58 for the second wicket, then Deepti Sharma had Athapaththu stumped by Ghosh and bowled Gunaratne two balls later. Sri Lanka were 63 for 3 at the halfway mark of the chase.

Sree Charani took the next bite. She held a return catch to remove Harshitha Samarawickrama, who had helped beat India in the 2024 final, then struck twice more in three balls to send back Kavisha Dilhari and Nilakshika Silva (22 off 16). Charani finished with 4 for 20 from four overs, one of them a maiden. Deepti took 3 for 19 from four and bowled Kaushini Nuthyangana to end the innings. The full India vs Sri Lanka scorecard shows Shafali also picking up Hasini Perera.

Shafali closed the tournament with 236 runs from five innings and three fifties. Harmanpreet said she could not ask for more from a batter taking the job with bat and ball. “We set some really high standards for us and we had to match them every day,” she said. India have now taken a record-extending eighth Women’s Asia Cup title across ten editions of the event.

The Presentation Ended After Sri Lanka’s Cheque

Naqvi sat in the Royal Box through the match with BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia and vice-president Rajeev Shukla. After the win he came onto the stage and handed Athapaththu the runners-up cheque. Sri Lanka collected. India did not walk up for the cup.

The women’s side had been told the plan before the toss. On September 14, Shukla said the board had discussed the handover, decided it would not take the trophy from Naqvi, and briefed the team. “He also did not raise any objection to it,” Shukla said. “He gave it to whoever he had to give it to and then left.”

That is the change from September 2025. The men’s presentation in Dubai stalled for more than an hour while Naqvi held his ground and India held theirs. This time both camps already knew the last scene. The leftover problem is practical. A side that has now won the continental title eight times still has nothing to put in a cabinet, the same blank space the men have lived with since last year.

That stand has been taken by BCCI, and we stand by it. For us, this tournament is over. We’re the champions, that’s good enough. It was on the big board that India champions of Asia Cup 2026.

Amol Muzumdar, India head coach, post-match press conference

Saikia handed Nandani Sharma an in-house best-fielder medal on the sidelines, with fielding coach Munish Bali part of that small presentation. Muzumdar, asked if the team might still receive the ACC cup in the coming days, said he had no news and could not answer. “This tournament is over, officially over for us,” he said. “We’re happy that we’ve turned out to be champions. Now, we look forward for the Asian Games.”

Why the BCCI Will Not Take a Cup From Naqvi

Saikia called the skip a conscious board decision, taken with public feeling after the Pahalgam attack in April 2025, which killed 26 people. A brief military clash followed the next month. He said the government still wants India in every multinational event, including those that draw Pakistan, and that the BCCI follows that brief on the field.

The cup is the part the board will not swallow. “We cannot accept a trophy from the hands of a representative of that country who works against our country,” Saikia said. He told the ACC before the final that India would not join the official presentation as it had been drawn up.

WHAT THE BCCI WILL AND WILL NOT DO

• On the field: India still play every opponent in multinational events, including Pakistan.
• On the podium: the team will not take the Asia Cup from Naqvi while he holds the ACC chair.
• The fallback: the board asked that the ACC deputy chairman do the handover instead.
• The 2025 link: Saikia said the women were keeping solidarity with the men, who took the same stand after beating Pakistan.

“This was a firm institutional decision, reflective of the position we have maintained, and was not directed at the players, the tournament or the sport,” he said. He added that the board tried to fix the September 13 ceremony and failed, and that he had no regrets because the job was to win. “The BCCI sends its teams to play all opponents in multinational tournaments, but that does not mean we will accept every condition.”

The same deputy-chairman request sat on the table in 2025, when India asked for Emirates board vice-chairman Khalid Al Zarooni to present the men’s cup. Naqvi refused then. He sat with Al Zarooni again in the Royal Box for the women’s final. The workaround never arrived.

The 2025 Trophy Is Still Locked in Dubai

India’s men beat Pakistan in the Asia Cup final on September 28, 2025, also in Dubai. Suryakumar Yadav’s side would not take the cup or the winners’ medals from Naqvi. Individual prizes went to other names on the stage. An ACC official carried the trophy away. Suryakumar said he had never seen a champion team denied a hard-earned cup, and that the 14 players in the dressing room were the real trophies.

The silverware went to the ACC office in the ICC Academy complex, watched by a two-person staff, with orders that it not move without Naqvi’s approval and his presence. On October 1, 2025, after an ACC meeting in Dubai that BCCI officials joined remotely, he put that condition on the record.

Indian media thrives on lies, not facts. Let me make it absolutely clear: I have done nothing wrong and I have never apologized to the BCCI nor will I ever do so.

This fabricated nonsense is nothing but cheap propaganda, aimed only at misleading their own people. Unfortunately,… https://t.co/kHwBkEeQC2

— Mohsin Naqvi (@MohsinnaqviC42) October 1, 2025

He wrote that he had been ready to hand the trophy over that night and was still ready, and that India could come to the ACC office and collect it from him. BCCI officials later asked in writing for the cup back. The condition did not change. As of the women’s final, 350 days after that men’s night, the 2025 trophy had not been handed over.

TWO CUPS INDIA HAS NOT COLLECTED

Muzumdar’s line about the big board is the new normal those two rows describe. The ACC still stages a final. The champions still get their name on the screen. The object that used to close the night now waits on a rule only one man will relax.

Three Jobs, One Personal Handover Rule

Naqvi is not a ceremonial guest. He is Pakistan’s interior minister, chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, and ACC president, a job he took in April 2025 after Shammi Silva’s interim stint that followed Jay Shah. Those three roles sit in the same person at the same presentation.

That overlap is why the BCCI treats the handover as politics rather than protocol. The ACC president who would normally pass the cup is also a sitting minister in the government India blames for the 2025 attack. Saikia’s phrasing, “a representative of that country who works against our country,” names the office, not a one-night insult.

Naqvi’s counter is that the ACC chair includes the right to present, and that India is dragging politics onto the grass. His October 2025 post accused Indian coverage of cheap propaganda and said he had not apologised to the BCCI and would not. The women’s final did not produce a new post of that kind. He presented what he could present, the runners-up cheque, and left, which matches Shukla’s account that there was no fresh argument on the podium.

The cost lands on the players all the same. Harmanpreet’s team went unbeaten, avenged Dambulla, and still exited through the same door Suryakumar’s side used. The ACC is left with two championship cups in a city where both finals were played, and with a ceremony that now stops when the runners-up have been paid.

India Face Japan on September 18

Muzumdar has already turned the page. The Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya run from September 19 to October 4, and both Indian cricket teams go as defending champions from Hangzhou 2023, when the women beat Sri Lanka by 19 runs for gold.

The cricket itself starts before the opening ceremony. Women’s matches run September 17 to 22 at Korogi Athletic Park in Aichi Prefecture, an eight-team knockout. India, as defending champions, enter at the last eight.

THE WEEK AFTER DUBAI

1. April 2025: The Pahalgam attack kills 26 people. Naqvi becomes ACC president the same month.
2. September 28, 2025: India men beat Pakistan in Dubai and refuse the cup from Naqvi.
3. October 1, 2025: Naqvi says India can collect the trophy from him at the ACC office.
4. September 13, 2026: India women beat Sri Lanka by 72 runs and skip the official presentation.
5. September 18, 2026: India women play hosts Japan in the Asian Games quarter-finals at 10:30 AM IST.

The women’s quarter-final against Japan is the first match that side will play after the Asia Cup. Semi-finals sit on September 20, with the gold-medal match on September 22. India’s men begin later, on September 28, against the Group A runners-up.

Muzumdar said he was proud of every player and staff member in the Asia Cup unit and that the event was officially over. The next ball is in Japan. The two ACC cups remain where Naqvi’s rule left them, one of them for 350 days and counting, the other from a night when India were content to be champions on the board.