New Delhi: Pakistan’s cricket board has lodged its protest with the Asian Cricket Council (ACC) against the Indian men’s team not shaking hands with their counterparts after Sunday (September 14)’s Asia Cup match in Dubai.After winning the match by chasing down their target of 128 runs, players in the Indian team did not shake hands with their Pakistani opponents as is the norm, instead heading straight to the changing room, in a move that captain Suryakumar Yadav suggested was a response to the Pahalgam terror attack for which New Delhi has blamed Pakistan.Pakistan team manager Naveed Cheema “lodged a strong protest [with the ACC] against Indian players’ behaviour of not shaking hands”, deeming it “unsporting” and responding by not sending captain Salman Agha to the post-match presentation, PTI quoted a Pakistan Cricket Board statement issued late Sunday as saying.The board also protested match referee Andy Pycroft’s alleged decision to “[request] the captains not to shake hands during the toss,” the Pakistani newspaper Dawn quoted it as saying.Asked after the match if the team had decided beforehand not to shake hands with their opponents, Yadav told the media that the Indian government and the Board for Control of Cricket in India “were aligned together” and that he felt “we came here just to play the game”. “I think … we gave the proper reply.”Later asked if the team’s decision was not unsporting, Yadav said that some “things in life are ahead of the sportsman’s spirit”.“We stand with all the victims of the Pahalgam terror attack and we stand with their families also,” the batter said, adding: “As I said at the press conference, we dedicate our win to our brave armed forces who took part in Operation Sindoor, and as they continue to inspire us all, we’ll try our best whenever given an opportunity to inspire them as well. If possible.”Following the April 22 terror attack in south Kashmir’s Pahalgam in which three terrorists singled out and shot dead 26 civilians, New Delhi launched airstrikes on ‘terrorist infrastructure’ in Pakistan as well as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir on May 7 as part of Operation Sindoor, sparking a four-day-long military conflict between the two sides.Mike Hesson, the Pakistani side’s white-ball coach, told reporters that his team was “disappointed” with the Indians’ decision and that captain Agha’s absence from the post-match presentation was a result of what happened.“Well, look, obviously we were ready to shake hands at the end of the game. We obviously were disappointed that our opposition didn’t do that,” Hesson said.He continued: “We sort of went over there [to the dugout] to shake hands and they’d already gone into the changing room. So it was a disappointing way, obviously, for the match to finish, in a match that we were disappointed in the way we played, but certainly were willing to go and shake hands.”When asked to address Agha’s absence, Hesson said it was a “flow-in effect” of the fact that handshakes did not occur despite the Pakistani team’s eagerness for it. “That was pretty much the end of it.”India won Sunday’s match by seven wickets and with 25 balls to spare after they chased down their target of 128 runs.It has been noted that defending champion India and Pakistan may still play each other in the remainder of the eight-team Asia Cup being hosted in the UAE.Prior to Sunday’s match, opposition politicians had criticised the Indian government for deciding to play the Pakistani team, including against the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying that ‘blood and water cannot flow together’ – a reference to the Pahalgam attack and the subsequent conflict as well as New Delhi’s decision to put the bilateral Indus Waters Treaty in abeyance.The youth affairs and sports ministry said last month that while India would not play Pakistan in bilateral tournaments it would do so in multilateral ones.In a statement it had said it would permit the Indian team to play Pakistan in multilateral tournaments in line with the “practices of international sports bodies and [in] the interest of our own sportspersons”.“It is also relevant to take into account India’s emergence as a credible venue to host international sports events,” it said.