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It's only in recent years that female athletes in the subcontinent have gained recognition as serious cricketers. For generations, they endured scorn, censure, exclusion – including the risk of physical harm – to follow their love for the game. Currently, India is staging a World Cup with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the home nation's athletes could become national treasures if they achieve their first championship win.

It would, therefore, be a great injustice if this weekend's discussion focused on their men's teams. However, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are inevitable. Not because the host team are strong favorites to win, but because they are unlikely to exchange greetings with their rivals. Handshakegate, as it's been dubbed, will have a another chapter.

In case you weren't aware of the initial incident, it took place at the conclusion of the men's group match between India and Pakistan at the continental championship last month when the India skipper, Suryakumar Yadav, and his team disappeared the pitch to avoid the usual post-game post-match ritual. A couple of similar follow-ups occurred in the knockout round and the championship game, culminating in a protracted award ceremony where the new champions refused to receive the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's chair, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been humorous if it hadn't been so distressing.

Observers of the women's World Cup might well have anticipated, and even pictured, a alternative conduct on Sunday. Women's sport is intended to offer a fresh model for the industry and an different path to toxic traditions. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members offering the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her team would have sent a strong message in an ever more polarized world.

It might have acknowledged the mutually adverse environment they have overcome and provided a symbolic reminder that political issues are fleeting compared with the bond of female solidarity. It would certainly have earned a spot alongside the additional good news story at this competition: the displaced Afghanistan players invited as guests, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their homes.

Instead, we've encountered the firm boundaries of the female athletic community. This comes as no surprise. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their country, idolized like deities, regarded like nobility. They possess all the benefits and influence that accompanies stardom and wealth. If Yadav and his team can't balk the directives of an strong-handed leader, what hope do the female players have, whose improved position is only recently attained?

Maybe it's even more surprising that we're still talking about a simple greeting. The Asia Cup uproar prompted much analysis of that specific sporting ritual, not least because it is considered the ultimate marker of sportsmanship. But Yadav's snub was much less important than what he stated immediately after the first game.

Skipper Yadav deemed the winners' podium the "perfect occasion" to devote his team's victory to the military personnel who had participated in India's strikes on Pakistan in May, referred to as Operation Sindoor. "I hope they continue to motivate us all," Yadav told the post-match interviewer, "so we can provide them further cause on the ground each time we get an opportunity to make them smile."

This is where we are: a real-time discussion by a sporting leader publicly praising a military assault in which many people died. Two years ago, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a single humanitarian message past the ICC, not even the dove logo – a direct emblem of harmony – on his equipment. Yadav was eventually penalized 30% of his match fee for the remarks. He was not the only one disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated aircraft crashing and made "six-zero" gestures to the crowd in the Super4 match – similarly alluding to the conflict – was given the identical penalty.

This is not a issue of failing to honor your opponents – this is athletics appropriated as patriotic messaging. There's no use to be morally outraged by a missing greeting when that's merely a small detail in the narrative of two nations actively using cricket as a political lever and weapon of proxy war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made that explicit with his post-final tweet ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. The result remains unchanged – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, proclaims that athletics and governance must remain separate, while holding dual roles as a government minister and chair of the PCB, and publicly tagging the Indian leader about his country's "humiliating defeats" on the war front.

The takeaway from this situation shouldn't be about cricket, or India, or the Pakistani team, in isolation. It serves as a caution that the concept of ping pong diplomacy is over, for the time being. The same sport that was used to build bridges between the countries 20 years ago is now being used to inflame tensions between them by people who know exactly what they're doing, and huge fanbases who are eager participants.

Polarisation is infecting every aspect of society and as the greatest of the global soft powers, athletics is constantly susceptible: it's a form of leisure that literally encourages you to choose a team. Many who find India's gesture towards Pakistan aggressive will still champion a Ukrainian tennis player's entitlement to refuse to greet a Russian opponent on the court.

If you're still kidding yourself that the athletic field is a magical safe space that brings nations together, review the Ryder Cup recap. The behavior of the New York crowds was the "ideal reflection" of a golf-loving president who openly incites animosity against his adversaries. We observed not just the decline of the usual sporting principles of fairness and shared courtesy, but the speed at which this might be normalized and tacitly approved when sportspeople themselves – such as US captain Keegan Bradley – fail to acknowledge and penalize it.

A handshake is supposed to signify that, at the end of every competition, no matter how bitter or heated, the participants are setting aside their pretend enmity and recognizing their shared human bond. Should the rivalry is genuine – demanding that its players emerge in outspoken endorsement of their respective militaries – then why are you bothering with the arena of sports at all? It would be equivalent to don the fatigues immediately.