There was plenty of drama after India won the Asia Cup final by defeating Pakistan by five wickets on Sunday. The Indian team refused to collect the winner’s trophy or their individual medals at the presentation ceremony. Why? Because Asia Cricket Council (ACC) chief Mohsin Naqvi insisted that he would give away the trophy. The Indians refused to accept the trophy from him because ACC chief Naqvi is also the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman and the Interior Minister of Pakistan. The ceremony was delayed by over an hour before it wound up without a trophy presentation.

Earlier in the game itself, Tilak Varma and Shivam Dube’s crucial partnership brought India back from the abyss and guided the Men in Blue to a 5-wicket win against Pakistan on Sunday, helping the team clinch their 9th Asia Cup. It wasn’t an easy task with Faheem Ashraf and Shaheen Afridi initially silencing the Indian crowd when they snapped up Abhishek Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav and Shubman Gill for single digits inside powerplay. Apart from Dube, Varma also had an important partnership with Sanju Samson which steadied the innings.

Earlier, Kuldeep Yadav took 4 wickets, leading the India bowling lineup as Pakistan suffered a horrible collapse after a steady start, losing 9 wickets for just 33 runs as they were skittled out for just 146 runs in 19.1 overs at Dubai in the Asia Cup final. It had started swimmingly for Pakistan with Sahibzada Farhan scoring 57 and Fakhar Zaman chipping in with 46 but Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah (2/25), Varun Chakravarthy (2/30) and Axar Patel (2/26) ran through the remaining batters like hot knife through butter with only Saim Ayub the other batter to reach double figures.