Dubai: The long-running controversy in the handshake appeared again on Sunday when the Indian captain Suryakumar Yadav again refused to shake hands with Pakistan-skipper Salman Ali Agha during the Worp of the High-voltage ACC Men’s T20 Asia Cup 2025 in the Dubai International Cicket Stadium.
After winning the Worp, Suryakumar Yadav chose to first bowl and walked straight on past the skipper from Pakistan to Ravi Shastri for the discussion before the game, while Salman Ali Agha reflected the gesture.
The handshake snub comes in the background of a continuous row between the arch rivals, which emerged from the group stage collision, which attracted a lot of attention both and outside the field.
Pundits mentioned his decision to skip a usual handshake at the throw and political statements in the interview after the game “unprecedented” and “harmful to the spirit of the game.”
The drama then started the Indian captain exceeded all the boundaries of sportiness by using his speech after the game to drag politics to cricket, a movement described by many observers as “unprecedented” and “harmful to the spirit of the game”.
The worsening of the tension was the refusal of India to exchange a traditional handshake during the toss ceremony – reportedly directed by competition referee Andy Pycroft.
Matters escalated to the point where the Pakistan Cricketboard (PCB) considered pulling itself out of the Asia Cup. The situation only became harmless after Pycroft admitted that according to PCB it had the aspects of the controversy inversely reversed and regretted it.
The green shirts set up a final against India after the past Bangladesh with 11 points in a super fours meeting on 25 September. The final will be the first time that the arch rivals will face each other in the history of the tournament.
The 2016 champions have defeated every opposition on their path before they are complicated in the final of the eight team tournament.
Pakistan was beaten twice, first in the group phase and then in Super Fours, by an India team with the world’s top fittings and bowler in the T20 format in open Abhishek Sharma and Spinner Varun Chakravarthy.
