The Asian Cricket Council (ACC) has reportedly responded to BCCI’s official letter seeking clarification on the 2025 Asia Cup trophy handover. Mohsin Naqvi, the PCB chairman and also the ACC president, has reverted to the Indian Cricket Board on Tuesday (Oct 21), proposing to host a trophy presentation ceremony in Dubai in the first week of November. The Asian Cricket apex body has shown willingness to hand over the trophy to this edition’s winners, India, but at the time and place of their choosing.

“If you want the trophy, we can hold a ceremony where you can receive it,” the ACC reportedly told the BCCI, per a report in Geo News.

Meanwhile, after India’s T20I side beat arch-rivals Pakistan in the marquee Asia Cup final last month, captain Suryakumar Yadav decided against receiving the trophy from Naqvi, who also happens to be an interior minister in Pakistan’s ruling government. The BCCI and team management’s decision came on the back of the Pahalgam terror attack on India’s Kashmir earlier this year, carried out by Pakistani-based terrorists, who killed 26 innocent lives in broad daylight.

To mark respect to the victims of this heinous attack, the worst on Indian soil since the 2019 Pulwama bombing, the Indian Team also decided against shaking hands with their counterparts despite facing them thrice in this tournament alone.

A separate PTI report, however, has claimed that the BCCI, which received backing from two other boards, the ACB and SLC, has rejected ACC’s ‘November offer’ to collect the Asia Cup trophy from the body’s headquarters in Dubai. The BCCI is expected to raise this issue at the 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," an unnamed 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.

Meanwhile, the former BCCI secretary, Jay Shah, currently chairs the ICC.

Source: WION