Behind the scenes: Off-field rancour after on-field hostility as Suryakumar Yadav’s India beat Pakistan to win Asia Cup | Cricket News

Sample One: Seven minutes into Salman’s press conference, ninety minutes past midnight here, a Pakistani journalist complained to the captain about India’s media manager ignoring Pakistan scribes’ requests to shoot questions at Suryakumar. He also pointed out to a fellow journalist whose questions were shot down by the media manager. Cue bedlam. A section of incensed Indian scribes protested and pointed to the Pakistani journalists around them who had asked questions to Suryakumar. Accusations and counter-accusations flew, the journalist whose question was abruptly cut off stood up and yelled that he was not allowed to complete his question. The venue media manager and his assistants, with security men in black blazers and mean eyes lurking in the background, pacified them. A semblance of normalcy was restored. Absolute normal was absolutely away.

It was true that India’s media manager abruptly cut off the question. But it was also true that the journalist, rather than asking a question, was sermonising to Suryakumar about gamesmanship. It meandered along meaninglessly before the media manager intervened. The Indian captain, chuckling, even told the journalist: “Gussa ho rahe ho aap (You are getting angry).” Gamesmanship, that unstated moral code was the prevailing theme of the interactions, or rather the central narrative of the tournament. Whereas Salman took every opportunity to accuse his counterpart of not showing it, Suryakumar grabbed every chance to defend his actions with words.

Cutting back to the journalist and Agha, he asked whether he was happy that Pakistan upheld the ideals of sportsmanship. Agha saddled up and rode the moral high horse. “It is disrespectful. What has happened is very disappointing,” he took off, referring to Suryakumar and his team’s insistence on not receiving the trophy from Naqvi. “If you look at cricket, they are thinking that if they do not shake hands with us, they are disrespecting us. No, sir, they are disrespecting cricket. What they did today, a good team will never behave this way.”

He then resorted to the karma biting back refrain. “You hurt cricket, cricket will also hurt you. I don’t want to use very harsh words. This is very disrespectful; they are being disrespectful to the game,” he said, also referring to the Indian team unwilling to accept the trophy from ACC chief Mohsin Naqvi, who is Pakistan Cricket Board’s chairman as well as the country’s interior affairs minister. “I have no idea about this [any communication between BCCI and ACC]. We took this call on the ground. No one told us to do this,” Suryakumar said.

WATCH | ‘You are getting angry’: Suryakumar Yadav fields questions after India refuse to accept Asia Cup trophy from Pakistan’s Mohsin Naqvi

Suryakumar was typical Suryakumar, smiling, bantering and in his raptures. Not receiving the trophy, he asserted, was strange, but it did not diminish the joy of winning a tournament. “This is one thing which I have never seen since I have started playing cricket, since I have started following cricket that a champion team is denied to get a trophy,” he said.

An Agha clip could be merged as a rejoinder, where he says: “Of course, the ACC president will give the trophy to the winners – if you won’t take the trophy from him, how will you get it?”

Striking a philosophical chord

Suryakumar then struck a philosophical chord. “If you tell me about the trophies, my trophies are sitting in the dressing room, all the 14 guys, all the support staff. Those are the real trophies, the real moments which I am taking back as lovely memories and which will stay forever.”

Victors and unbeatables, but they are not role models in Agha’s eyes. “We are not sending a good message to the children watching the game. People consider us as role models, but if we’re behaving like this, we’re not inspiring them. What happened shouldn’t have happened, but you should ask the people [India] responsible for this rather than me.”

Questions returned to where it all began. September 14, 2025. First Group Game between India and Pakistan. Everything that happened today was a consequence of all that happened [before],” Agha said. He said he hoped for peace and goodwill in the future, and hinted that he would not nurse a personal grudge against Suryakumar. “He shook hands with me in private at the start of the tournament. Both at the pre-tournament press conference and when we met in the referee’s meeting. But when they’re out in the world in front of the cameras, they don’t shake our hands. I’m sure he’s following the instructions he’s been given. But if it was up to him, he’d shake hands with me.”

Weaving his natural charm, Suryakumar defused the controversial edge of the questions. An example: Q: What was the chain of events, we don’t know anything officially. A: You know everything. Q: No, you tell us what happened and how. A: Where? Q: After the match. Rinku Singh hit a four. Q: No, after that. A: India won the Asia Cup. Q: After the presentation? A: After that, we came out and celebrated. We clapped for every player’s achievement, whistled. Tilak (Verma), Kuldeep (Yadav)… Bhai (Abhishek Sharma, sitting beside him) got a car, we celebrated that too. So, what else can one want? This was the chain of events!

Suryakumar, though, continued to rake up old demons. Days after ICC fined him for the “Operation reference”, he dedicated his earnings from the tournament to the Indian Army. “As a gesture, I want to donate my match fees from all the games in this tournament to the Indian Army. I don’t know if people will call it controversial, but for me, it’s the right thing to do,” he said. Whether Agha listened to this or not, he later donated his match fees to the victims of the Operation Sindoor. He, though, had thrown the runners-up cheque onto the ground during the award ceremony.

If the press conferences were rancorous, so was the mood in the press box, where feverish journalists celebrated like fans, exchanged insults and expletives like angsty teenagers. The iconic images of the games would not be Rinku Singh’s winning stroke, Tilak Varma in a blissful reverie, or the winning captain holding the trophy aloft. But the hands that never shook and the hands that lifted the trophy. And numerous provocative gestures in between.