It finished just as it started: with India’s captain jovially making a dedication to his country’s armed forces, while his defeated Pakistan counterpart looked shell-shocked trying to digest it all.
In between the no handshakes at the start, and the no trophy at the end, there was a whole lot of ugliness that did nothing for the sport of cricket.
Asia Cup 2025 only went ahead at all because apparently cricket can only survive with the revenue generated by India-Pakistan fixtures. They had three of those, so everyone must be swimming in dough, and the sport better off for it, right?
Hardly. Does cricket really need India-Pakistan matches when this is what they bring? Would it not have been better off if they had decided back then that, no, in actual fact, this is going to be more trouble than its worth?
Players making mocking gestures related to war. No handshakes. Boycott threats. Sit-in protests at the team hotel, while government-level talks took place abroad. Tit-for-tat official complaints.
And, even in Dubai, fans being ejected for altercations in the stands, as happened during the final. That has never happened before when these two teams have met in this city. The fixture played here had previously brought rival fans together, not set them apart.
It is easy to be too precious about these things. And, let’s get it right: the Asia Cup was impossible to take your eyes off. But also, so they say, was bear baiting.
Cricket might like to claim it is the “gentlemen’s game.” Whether that has ever been the case is spurious, but it is certainly not now.
And it is not just cricket. It is the way of the world in international sport. Take golf, whose origins are even more genteel than those of cricket.
Once upon a time, Jack Nicklaus conceded a putt to spare his opponent the possibility of losing the Ryder Cup when a tie was fine for everyone.
And now? Europe’s biggest star gets heckled by a paid employee of the organisers in the coarsest terms, via a megaphone, and his wife – who is American – gets hit by a drink.
“Golf should be held to higher standards than this,” Rory McIlroy said in the aftermath of Europe’s win in the ill-tempered match in New York this weekend.
Cricket might feel the same about the Asia Cup. But who now is responsible for holding people to account? What chance have the ICC got, given the politics involved?
“#OperationSindoor on the games field,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on social media after their win on Sunday night. “Outcome is the same – India wins! Congrats to our cricketers.”
Mohsin Naqvi, who is the president of the organisers of the Asia Cup yet simultaneously the man who threatened boycotts against it, sniped straight back.
“If war was your measure of pride, history already records your humiliating defeats at Pakistan’s hands,” he replied.
“No cricket match can rewrite that truth. Dragging war into sport only exposes desperation and disgraces the very spirit of the game”
It was Naqvi’s presence on stage which put India’s players off going up to collect the trophy. His X bio is a micro-opus in itself.
“Federal Interior Minister and Narcotics Control | Chairman PCB | President ACC | Proud Pakistani, Husband & Father. Journalism is my Passion,” it reads. Nope, no conflicts of interest to see here. Move along.
The Indian board are reportedly going to raise the issue of Naqvi at the next ICC meeting. For all the good that will do.
That is the same ICC who fined Suryakumar Yadav 30 per cent of his match fee for his comments after the opening game, which including dedicating India’s win against Pakistan to the country’s armed forces.
He was apparently told not to make any statement that could be construed as political in the remainder of the tournament.
At the culmination of which he said: “I have decided to donate my match fees from this tournament to support our armed forces and the families of the victims who suffered from the Pahalgam terror attack. You always remain in my thoughts.”
Clearly that 30 per cent fine by the ICC must have really stung.
Salman Agha, his opposite number, accused Suryakumar of double standards.
“He shook hands with me in private at the start of the tournament, both at the pre-tournament press conference and when we met in the referee’s meeting,” Agha said.
“But when they’re out in the world in front of the cameras, they don’t shake our hands. I’m sure he’s following the instructions he’s been given. But if it were up to him, he’d shake hands with me.”
The Asia Cup was poisonously polarising, and by the end there were no adults left in the room. Next time, maybe they should not bother with it at all.
