India Refuses Women's Asia Cup Trophy Ceremony After Defeating Sri Lanka

The ongoing rift between Asian cricket’s top rivals came to the forefront in Dubai as the Indian team chose to skip the post-match trophy presentation following their victory in the Women's Asia Cup.

The tournament favorites secured the title with a convincing 72-run win against Sri Lanka in front of 16,339 spectators at the Dubai International Stadium on Sunday night. Although the majority of the crowd consisted of India fans, they did not witness Harmanpreet Kaur lifting the trophy after she decided against accepting it.

The women’s squad followed the precedent set by their male counterparts, who similarly avoided the podium at the conclusion of a contentious Men’s Asia Cup last year, during which they also refused handshakes with Pakistan’s players. Mohsin Naqvi, serving as Pakistan’s Minister of Interior and chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board, was scheduled to present the trophy in his capacity as president of the Asian Cricket Council.

Following the previous standoff at the men's event, India’s women’s team also bypassed the presentation ceremony. Instead, the proceedings concluded when Sri Lanka’s captain, Chamari Athapaththu, accepted the runners-up check.

“That stand has been taken by the Board of Control for Cricket in India and we stand by it,” stated Amol Mazumdar, India’s coach. “For us, this tournament is over. We are the champions. That is good enough. It was on the big board that India are champions of the Asia Cup 2026. This tournament is officially over for us and we are happy that we have turned out to be champions. Now we look forward to the Asian Games.”

India maintained dominance throughout the competition and put pressure on the Sri Lankans from the start of the final. The match was virtually decided by the time India’s opening batters—Smriti Mandhana (59) and Shafali Verma (68)—were separated with the score at 129 in the 13th over. Sri Lanka managed some containment thereafter, but India's total of 183-5 from 20 overs remained out of reach.

India displayed equal dominance with the bowling attack, as Shree Charani claimed 4-20 and Deepti Sharma took 3-19, restricting the Sri Lankans to 111 all out.

“We know Sri Lanka are a great team, but we played to our standards,” Harmanpreet remarked. “We set high standards for ourselves and we wanted to keep matching them. We are very happy the way we all performed. The openers did a great job for us. It was great to see someone like Shafali take responsibility through the tournament with the bat and ball.”

While Sri Lanka could not replicate their previous tournament surprise, Athapaththu expressed confidence in a team recovery. “This is part of the game; one team wins, one team loses,” Athapaththu said. “We did not play our best game in all three departments. They played very well. But we will bounce back. The Asian Games is coming up, and we will bounce back.”