Varma hits 69 not out after coming in to bat at 10-2 as India chase 146 in a nervy end to the Asia Cup 2025 in Dubai.

Tilak Varma has held his nerve with an unbeaten innings of 69 runs as he has steered India home in a five-wicket win over Pakistan in a gripping and controversial final of the Asia Cup 2025 in Dubai.

Coming in to bat with India two wickets down for 10 runs in the third over, Varma weathered the storm while wickets fell at the other end as India chased 147 in the politically charged tournament decider on Sunday, after which the champions refused to accept the winner’s trophy from Asian Cricket Council (ACC) Chairman Mohsin Naqvi.

It was the third India vs Pakistan match of the tournament and once again, the fixture was marred by controversy as the post-match presentation was delayed by more than an hour due to unexplained reasons as players and tournament organisers waited on the ground.

Once the ceremony got under way, it was revealed by presenter Simon Doull that the Indian cricket team had refused to attend it and would not collect their medals or the Asia Cup trophy, ostensibly from Naqvi, who is also chairman of the Pakistan Cricket Board and Pakistan’s interior minister.

“Indian team refuses to accept Asia Cup winners’ trophy from Pakistan minister and ACC head Mohsin Naqvi,” the Press Trust of India reported after the ceremony concluded.

However, India’s player of the final Varma, top batter Abhishek Sharma and bowler Kuldeep Yadav did walk up to the presentation area to collect their cheques, albeit not from Naqvi.

Minutes later, India captain Suryakumar Yadav and his teammates cheered with a mock trophy as they celebrated their ninth Asia Cup title.

India’s win was built around their 22-year-old batter Varma’s measured innings, which came off 53 balls and included four sixes and three fours.

The run chase was dented in the second over when their star batter and the tournament’s leading run scorer, Abhishek, was dismissed for five runs by Pakistan’s medium-pace bowler Faheem Ashraf on the first ball of India’s second over. He fell to a mistimed attempt at a six and was caught at mid-on.

Suryakumar followed soon after when Shaheen Shah Afridi dismissed him for one run as the Indian captain hit his fifth ball straight to mid-off, where his Pakistani counterpart, Salman Agha, took a diving catch.

It was then up to Varma and opener Gill to steady the ship for India, but Gill departed nine balls later to Ashraf. Wicketkeeper Sanju Samson chipped in with an innings of 24 off 21 before falling to leg-spin bowler Abrar Ahmed.

New batter Shivam Dube, who had earlier taken on the responsibility of opening the bowling for India in the absence of Hardik Pandya, played a supporting role to Varma’s innings.

While Pakistan bowled well, they were not fully supported by the fielders as two catches were dropped and a crucial run-out chance was missed by wicketkeeper Mohammad Haris, who was slow to remove the bails as Varma dived in.

Varma made Pakistan pay as he and Dube took India on the verge of victory, only for Dube to fall with six balls and nine runs left.

Rinku Singh, who replaced Pandya in the final, faced one ball and hit the winning runs off it to spark celebrations in the Indian camp.

Earlier, Pakistan began their innings brightly as Sahibzada Farhan and Fakhar Zaman gave them an opening stand of 84 before Farhan was dismissed for 57 off 38 in the 10th over.

Zaman (46 off 35) then formed a brief partnership with Saim Ayub, who scored 14 runs, but once they were dismissed, none of the Pakistan batters could post more than nine runs.

The team in green crashed from 113-2 to 146 all out in 38 balls as they finished their innings in 19.1 overs.

Yadav was the pick of the bowlers for India as he picked up four wickets for 30 runs in his four overs. Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah and Varun Chakravarthy took a wicket apiece.

Yadav ended the tournament as its leading wicket-taker with 17 while Sharma was the top batter with 314 runs.

A year on from Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, reports say Hezbollah, the Lebanese group he led, is regrouping.

Analysts believe that while a weakened Hezbollah can no longer pose a significant threat to Israel, it can still create chaos and challenge opponents domestically as it tries to find a political footing to preserve its clout.

Long viewed as the strongest nonstate armed actor in the region, Hezbollah found its star waning in the past year, culminating in an international and domestic push for it to disarm entirely.

Handled recklessly, analysts believe, pressures to disarm the group could lead it to lash out and create internal strife that could outweigh international and regional pushes.

Hezbollah’s rhetoric remains defiant, and it has promised to reject Lebanese government efforts to disarm it – as its current leader, Naim Qassem, reiterated on Saturday to a crowd of thousands of people who had gathered at Nasrallah’s tomb to commemorate his assassination.

“We will never abandon our weapons, nor will we relinquish them,” he said to the crowd, adding that Hezbollah would continue to “confront any project that serves Israel”.

No action yet

Hezbollah started trading attacks with Israel on October 8, 2023, the day after the latter launched its war on Gaza. This continued until September 2024 when an Israeli military intensification and subsequent invasion killed about 4,000 people in Lebanon, injured thousands more and displaced hundreds of thousands.

By the time a ceasefire was announced on November 27, much of Hezbollah’s senior military leadership, including Nasrallah, the group’s secretary-general, had been killed by Israel.

The terms of the ceasefire were poorly defined, according to diplomatic sources with knowledge of the agreement, but the public understanding was that both sides would cease attacks, Hezbollah would disarm in southern Lebanon and Israel would withdraw its forces from the south. But soon after, Israel and the United States argued that Hezbollah must disarm entirely.

Seeing it weakened, Hezbollah’s domestic and regional opponents began calling for the group to give up its weapons. Sensing the changing regional winds, many of Hezbollah’s domestic allies jumped ship and voiced support for full disarmament.

The Lebanese government, under pressure from the US and Israel, announced on September 5 that the Lebanese armed forces have been tasked with forming a plan to disarm Hezbollah.

In the meantime, Israel has continually violated the ceasefire, bombing southern Lebanon. UNIFIL, the UN peacekeeping force in the south, said Israel is committing “continuous violations of this [ceasefire] arrangement, including air and drone strikes on Lebanese territory”.

Despite media speculation that Hezbollah is regrouping in southern Lebanon, particularly in anti-Hezbollah media outlets, it has only claimed one attack since the ceasefire was announced in November.

Analysts believe Hezbollah is no longer in a position to threaten Israel, meaning that any decision by the latter to expand attacks in Lebanon would be for considerations other than Hezbollah’s current capabilities.

Hezbollah and its supporters argue that Israel’s threats and continued violations as well as its continued presence occupying five points on Lebanese territory justify the need for resistance.

“The continued existence of a real threat justifies the maintenance of deterrence and defence capabilities because deterrence is not a one-time event but rather a cumulative process that requires a stable and integrated power structure within a broader political context,” Ali Haidar, a columnist with the pro-Hezbollah newspaper Al-Akhbar, wrote recently.

Al Jazeera reached out to Hezbollah for comment but did not receive a response before publication.

What does ‘regrouping’ mean?

“No military or political military force [will not] regroup after suffering a major defeat as [Hezbollah] did last year,” Michael Young, a Lebanese analyst and writer, said.

“But are they in a position to mount rockets and bomb northern Israel along the border? No. Are they in a position to fire missiles at towns and cities? No.

“So what does [regrouping] mean?”

Lebanese political scientist Imad Salamey told Al Jazeera: “Hezbollah is significantly degraded – leadership attrition, [communications] penetrations and blows to command and control have been real. They will try to recover, but the plausible path is a smaller, cheaper, more agile Hezbollah.

“Israeli assessments themselves note both the damage done and Hezbollah’s attempts to regenerate via smuggling/self-production under intense intelligence pressure, suggesting any rebound will be partial and tactical rather than structural in the near term,” Salamey added.

In early December, the regime of Hezbollah ally Bashar al-Assad was toppled in Syria, another blow to the group, as it cut off a direct land route for weapons and financing to reach the group from Iran.

In the meantime, however, analysts said Hezbollah has been trying to use its remaining leverage through diplomacy, even sending signals to longtime foes like Saudi Arabia.

“We assure you that the arms of the resistance are pointed at the Israeli enemy, not Lebanon, Saudi Arabia or any other place or entity in the world,” Qassem said in a speech on September 19.

The message to Saudi Arabia, which has previously funded Hezbollah’s opponents in Lebanon, is part of a shift in the group’s strategy, analysts said.

“There’s a hint that they feel they can deal with things politically,” Young said. “They may feel they don’t need to resort to force or weapons if they can get more out of the system.”

It is also a reflection of the new political reality in Lebanon and the region, where Israel and the US have ascended in power and Iran, Hezbollah’s close ally, has faltered.

“Hezbollah is starting to realise that it is entrapped,” Lebanese political analyst Karim Emile Bitar told Al Jazeera.

Before the war, Hezbollah had the ability to make or break governments. But President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam were elected in early 2025 despite neither being Hezbollah’s preferred candidate.

Still, Hezbollah was either unwilling or unable to disrupt the formation of Salam’s government. Analysts said the group is in dire need of foreign aid that the government could secure to help rebuild its constituencies damaged by Israeli attacks.

But that money has yet to arrive as there is regional and domestic debate over whether the government should receive reconstruction funds before Hezbollah’s disarmament and other banking or political reforms.

Analysts and diplomats told Al Jazeera Hezbollah is still capable of raising tensions but has avoided fanning any flames due to the Lebanese state’s rising support as well as the fatigue and trauma Hezbollah members and supporters have due to last year’s war and continuing Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

Still, on Thursday, Hezbollah supporters flocked to Beirut’s seaside in remembrance of Nasrallah. Supporters projected their late leader’s image onto the Raouche Rocks, defying orders from the prime minister’s office that banned the act.

The event was seen as an expression of love for Nasrallah by his supporters and a provocation by Hezbollah’s opponents. But the group, which has threatened violence to get its way in the past, has largely avoided provocations since the war, apart from occasional attempts to block roads that were quickly reopened by the Lebanese military.

If Hezbollah is pursuing military regrouping, a senior Western diplomat with knowledge of the issue said, it would be more likely in the Bekaa Valley than in the south, where the ceasefire mechanism had been largely effective at supervising Hezbollah’s withdrawal.

The group, however, does appear to be altering its political strategy, Young said, adding that Hezbollah, via instructions from Iran, may eventually be looking for certain compromises.

He pointed out proposals by parliamentarians Ali Hassan Khalil, a Hezbollah ally, and Ali Fayyad, a Hezbollah MP, in their subcommittees, where they spoke about implementing the 1989 Ta’ef Accord, an agreement that ended the civil war, declared all militias should give up their arms and Lebanon should transition to a nonsectarian system of power.

“Their implicit point is that ‘If we implement Ta’ef in its entirety, then that can give us a greater role with better representation, and then we can talk about weapons,’” Young said.

‘Time for Hezbollah to go’?

Amid the intensifying pressure to disarm Hezbollah, analysts and diplomats fear that if pressed too hard, the group could lash out.

The US has announced a $14.2m aid package for the Lebanese military to help it disarm Hezbollah, and visits by US officials – including Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, deputy special envoy Morgan Ortagus and special envoy Tom Barrack – have intensified pressure on Lebanon.

“It’s time for Hezbollah to go,” Graham said during his visit in late August.

But Lebanon’s military has rejected setting a strict timetable for Hezbollah’s disarmament over fears the tense situation in Lebanon could descend into violence.

And news of the US aid has been received poorly in parts of Lebanon, where it is seen as part of a US effort to use Lebanon’s military to execute Israeli interests.

“[The Lebanese army] will never serve as a border guard for Israel. Its weapons are not weapons of discord, and its mission is sacred: to protect Lebanon and the Lebanese people,” Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, who is a Hezbollah ally, said in a statement on Tuesday.

The fears of diplomats and analysts are that a confrontation between the army and Hezbollah could lead to internal strife and a potential fracturing of the army along confessional lines – similar to what happened in the early days of the 1975-1990 Lebanese Civil War.

“[Disarming Hezbollah by force] is the worst possible option, but obviously, this is how the Americans are increasingly pressuring the Lebanese government to resolve this,” Young told Al Jazeera.

“The Lebanese army is not willing to resolve it through the use of force because they don’t want to be pushed into conflict with Hezbollah.”