New Delhi: The deadlock over the Asia Cup trophy, which is yet to reach champions India, continues to be unresolved as the Asian Cricket Council’s Pakistani head Mohsin Naqvi has refused to part with it despite a fresh missive from the BCCI, backed by boards of Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.
A top ACC source told PTI that Naqvi has insisted that a BCCI representative collect the trophy from him at the board’s headquarters in Dubai, but the Indian board has rejected that stance. The BCCI will bring this matter up in an ICC meeting next month.
“The BCCI secretary, BCCI’s ACC representative Rajeev Shukla and representatives of other member boards, including Sri Lanka Cricket and Afghanistan, had written to the ACC president last week over handing the trophy to India,” the ACC source said.
“But his response was that someone from BCCI should come to Dubai and take the trophy from him. So that matter has still not moved. BCCI has made its stance clear that it won’t be receiving the trophy from him. So the matter will most likely be decided in the ICC meeting,” he added.
The ICC is headed by former BCCI secretary Jay Shah.
The trophy has been at the ACC headquarters after the Indian team refused to accept it from Naqvi at the presentation ceremony, prompting him to walk away with it in an unprecedented turn of events. Naqvi is also the chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board and his country’s interior minister.
The Indians had refused to shake hands with their Pakistani counterparts during the entire Asia Cup as a mark of respect for the victims of Pahalgam terror attack.
The two teams played each other every Sunday of the three-week tournament.
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