India beat Pakistan by 19 runs in Nagoya, Japan, on Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026, to win the Asian Games men’s cricket gold, while players again withheld the customary handshakes. The match ended 211-6 to 192-6. The silence continued beyond the final ball: it was the fifth consecutive men’s game between the rivals in which players didn’t shake hands.
A match under political pressure
The refusal started before play. India captain Shreyas Iyer didn’t shake hands with Pakistan skipper Sahibzada Farhan at the toss, and neither team shook hands afterward. ICC chairman Jay Shah attended the final.
Cross-border tensions brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war last year, and the acrimony reached the cricket field. Players’ gestures turned the ceremony around a sporting contest into another display of that hostility, carrying visible signals of a wider national conflict.
The contrast showed elsewhere at the Asian Games. After India beat Pakistan in the hockey semifinal, players from both countries embraced and shook hands. In cricket, the teams avoided the customary exchange again.
The score, and the people who made it
India posted 211-6, its highest-ever T20 total against Pakistan, then restricted Pakistan to 192-6. India retained its title and recorded its seventh straight T20 victory over Pakistan.
Abhishek Sharma scored 61, striking a 20-ball half-century, and Tilak Varma finished unbeaten on 51. Sharma hit seven sixes and three fours before Pakistan stumped him after a 28-ball knock. Varma and Shivam Dube, who scored 27, added 57 runs in the final three overs. Varma reached his half-century by hitting 15 runs off fast bowler Ahmed Daniyal’s final four balls.
Pakistan’s Hasan Nawaz kept the chase alive with 96 off 51 balls, hitting seven sixes and five fours. He fell to a catch on the final ball, which also gave Dube his second wicket. Spinners Axar Patel and Washington Sundar each took 2-29; Dube finished with 2-33.
Pakistan’s fielding gave India openings. Sharma was dropped twice and should have been run out before completing his half-century; captain Iyer also survived when Saim Ayub missed a catch. Fifteen-year-old Vaibhav Sooryavanshi was dismissed for 15 after trying to reverse sweep Ayub. Wicketkeeper Usman Khan bobbled twice before completing the catch, and Ayub mocked Sooryavanshi with a “baby in the cradle” gesture.
The rivalry doesn’t stop at the boundary
Handshake refusals have marked other cricket meetings, too. The Indian men’s team beat Pakistan three times in the Asia Cup, including the final, and refused to shake hands in all three games. Suryakumar Yadav’s team also refused to accept the trophy from Pakistan Cricket Board chairman Mohsin Naqvi.
The Indian women’s team didn’t shake hands with Pakistan at a continental championship match and refused to accept the trophy from Naqvi after winning the women’s Asia Cup in the United Arab Emirates. In Nagoya, the men added another match to the pattern. The score settled the gold medal. The missing handshakes made the political strain plain.