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The three matches between India and Pakistan in Asia Cup 2025 were marred with controversies. There was so much drama that former England captain Michael Atherton even went on to ask the International Cricket Council (ICC) to stop arranging matches between the two teams in major tournaments. However, a BCCI official has played down this idea, stating that it is easy to talk, but sponsors and broadcasters will not agree to this by any means.
"It's easy to talk about all this, but will sponsors and broadcasters agree to it? In today's situation, if any major team, not just India, withdraws from a tournament, it will be difficult to attract sponsors," a BCCI official told Dainik Jagran.
Atherton's message to ICC
Earlier, Atherton had criticised the ICC to for arranging matches between India and Pakistan in every major tournament for economic benefit. He even went on to say that the rivalry between the two teams is being exploited and they shouldn't be meeting so often in competitions.
“If cricket was once the vehicle for diplomacy, it is now, clearly, a proxy for broader tensions and for propaganda. There is little justification, in any case, for a serious sport to arrange tournament fixtures to suit its economic need,s and now that the rivalry is being exploited in other ways, there is even less justification for it,” Atherton wrote in his column for The Times.
“For the next broadcast rights cycle, the fixture draw before ICC events should be transparen,t and if the two teams do not meet every time, so be it,” he added.
Meanwhile, there was a lot of controversy even after the conclusion of the final between India and Pakistan in Asia Cup. The Men in Blue refused to collect the trophy from Mohsin Naqvi, who is the chairman of both the Asian Cricket Council and Pakistan Cricket Board. This led to the Men in Blue not getting the trophy in the post-match ceremony.
India still haven't received the Asia Cup trophy
Suryakumar Yadav & Co. are yet to get their hands on the trophy as Naqvi had made it clear in a recent social media post that if they want it, then they will have to collect it from ACC's office in Dubai. It remains to be seen how this saga will finally end and when will the Indian team be able to celebrate the title that they deservedly won.
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