India win Asia Cup but refuse to receive trophy

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP):

India held their nerves in the last over to win cricket’s Asia Cup for the ninth time with a five-wicket victory over archrivals Pakistan in yesterday’s final with only two balls remaining.

In the final twist of an occasionally troubled tournament, the Indian team declined to receive the trophy and winners’ medals from Mohsin Naqvi — head of the Pakistan Cricket Board and Asian Cricket Council, and also Pakistan’s interior minister — and the tournament ended without either presentation.

Tilak Varma scored 69 not out for India off 53 balls, including a crucial six against Haris Rauf in the 20th over.

Rinku Singh hit the winning runs with a four — the only ball Singh faced in the entire tournament.

Put into bat, Pakistan had earlier collapsed from 113-1 to 146 all out in 19.1 overs at Dubai International Cricket Stadium.

That looked like being enough after defending champions India’s terrible start to its innings, dropping to 20-3 after four overs, including the prized wicket of Abhishek Sharma (5).

But Varma and Shivam Dube (33) led the recovery as India reached 150-5 in 19.4 overs.

Varma added 57 off 50 balls with Sanju Samson (24), but the game-changing partnership was between Varma and Dube (33 off 22 balls). The duo added 60 off 40 balls to snatch the game out of Pakistan’s hands.

It was India’s second T20 Asia Cup victory after 2016, and ninth overall since 1984, across formats.

This was the first India-Pakistan final in Asia Cup history, which started in 1984. The two sides had already met twice earlier in this tournament – in group play and Super Four — both won comfortably by India.

India’s cricketers refused to shake hands with Pakistan after both those games and there were no handshakes at yesterday’s toss or at the end of the game.

India’s chase got off to the worst possible start with a rare failure for aggressive opener Sharma. He was out caught for five off Faheem Ashraf.

Ashraf struck again to send back Shubman Gill for 12, while Shaheen Afridi got rid of skipper Suryakumar Yadav for just one.

Yadav’s miserable tournament ended with a total of 72 runs, while Sharma finished as the top run-scorer – 314 runs in seven innings at an average of 44.85 and strike rate of 200.

“It was not easy breaking into a T20 World Cup-winning team, but I backed myself,” Sharma said. “More importantly, the captain and coach have backed me.”