Muzumdar Reveals BCCI’s Stand: “Trophy or No Trophy Doesn’t Matter” After India Refuse Asia Cup Award
India won the Women’s Asia Cup 2026 by 72 runs. They beat Sri Lanka at Dubai International Cricket Stadium on September 13. Shafali Verma scored 68 off 39 balls. Smriti Mandhana made 59. Shree Charani took four wickets. Deepti Sharma finished with 3/19. India posted 183/5 and bowled Sri Lanka out for 111.
Then the ceremony stalled.
For 50 minutes after the final ball, no Indian player walked to the podium. ACC President Mohsin Naqvi waited on the dais. The broadcast cut to a studio show. Sri Lanka captain Chamari Athapaththu collected the runners-up cheque alone. The coverage ended without a single Indian player touching the trophy.
India’s eighth Women’s Asia Cup title was confirmed on the scoreboard. Not on the podium.
Head coach Amol Muzumdar addressed it directly after the match.
“India are officially the champions. Trophy or no trophy doesn’t matter to us. This is BCCI’s stand to not take trophy. We can’t say anything on this.”
Amol Muzumdar, post-match press conference, September 13, 2026
Minutes later, speaking to reporters outside the press conference, he expanded.
“That stand has been taken by BCCI and we stand by it. For us, this tournament is over, we are the champions. That’s good enough. It was on the big board that India are the champions of Asia Cup 2026. This tournament is officially over for us. We are happy that we are the champions and we look forward to the Asian Games.”
Amol Muzumdar, to media, September 13, 2026
Two statements. Same message. BCCI made the call. The team followed it.
Amol Muzumdar explains India’s decision not to accept the trophy from Mohsin Naqvi. 🇮🇳🏆#Amolmazumdar #AsiaCup #Cricket #BCCI pic.twitter.com/SI7DIKz2vW
— Vimal कुमार (@Vimalwa) September 13, 2026
The sequence inside the stadium tells its own story. After the match, BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia and vice-president Rajiv Shukla held a huddle with the Indian players near the boundary. Saikia then presented an in-house best fielder medal to Nandini Sharma. That was BCCI’s own ceremony, on their terms.
When Smriti Mandhana saw Naqvi standing on the presentation podium, she turned and walked back to the dressing room. No Indian player returned after that. The trophy presentation proceeded with Sri Lanka’s awards only. Athapaththu received the runners-up medal from Naqvi, gave her post-match interview, and left. The ceremony ended.
Naqvi left the stadium. No trophy was handed over.
This was not the first time. On September 28, 2025, India’s men’s team defeated Pakistan by five wickets in the Asia Cup final at the same venue. Captain Suryakumar Yadav’s team refused to accept the trophy from the same man. That ceremony was delayed over an hour before concluding without a presentation.
The men’s trophy remains at ACC headquarters. India have not received it.
BCCI secretary Devajit Saikia stated the board’s reasoning after the 2025 incident: “We have decided not to take the Asia Cup trophy from the ACC chairman, who happens to be one of the main leaders of Pakistan.”
That position has not shifted. It carried from the men’s team to the women’s team without a single word changing.
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What “We Can’t Say Anything” Actually Means
Muzumdar’s statement was precise. “This is BCCI’s stand. We can’t say anything on this.” That sentence does two things at once. It confirms the directive came from the board. And it draws a clear line between the players and the politics behind the decision.
This is what a coached response sounds like from the inside. The head coach is not making the call. He is executing it. His job in that moment is to stand between the board’s political position and the players who just won a tournament. He absorbs the questions so the players do not have to.
The Mandhana moment confirms it. She did not hesitate on the podium. She did not deliberate. She saw Naqvi, turned, and walked back to the dressing room. That is the response of a player who was briefed before the match, not someone making a decision in real time. When an entire squad acts identically without confusion, the instruction was clear and it came before the final ball was bowled.
Captain Harmanpreet Kaur kept her post-match comments entirely on cricket. “We set some really high standards for us, and we had to match them every day,” she said. Not a word about the trophy, the ceremony, or the politics. That separation is deliberate. The coach handles the board’s message. The captain handles the cricket. That division of responsibility does not happen by accident.
Why Naqvi Is the Problem
Mohsin Naqvi holds three positions simultaneously. He is ACC President, PCB Chairman, and Pakistan’s Interior Minister. The first role makes him the man who presents the Asia Cup trophy. The second and third make him politically unacceptable to BCCI.
The trigger was the April 2025 Pahalgam terror attack, which froze India-Pakistan diplomatic relations. BCCI wrote to the ICC, ruled out bilateral cricket with Pakistan, and has since refused to engage with Naqvi in any ceremonial capacity. The men’s team set the precedent. The women’s team confirmed it is permanent.
India now have two uncollected Asia Cup trophies. The men’s from 2025. The women’s from 2026. Both sit with the ACC. Both were won at Dubai International Cricket Stadium. Both were refused from Mohsin Naqvi.
The Indian women’s team moves to the Asian Games next. If the pattern holds, BCCI’s position will travel with them.
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