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It is merely in the past few seasons that women in the subcontinent have been acknowledged as professional cricket players. Over many years, they endured scorn, disapproval, exclusion – even the risk of physical harm – to follow their passion. Currently, India is staging a global tournament with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the host country's players could emerge as beloved icons if they secure their maiden tournament victory.

This would, therefore, be a great injustice if this weekend's talk centered around their male counterparts. And yet, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, comparison are inevitable. Not because the host team are highly favoured to win, but because they are not expected to exchange greetings with their rivals. Handshakegate, if we must call it that, will have a another chapter.

In case you weren't aware of the original drama, it occurred 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 customary friendly handshake tradition. A couple of same-y sequels transpired in the knockout round and the championship game, culminating in a protracted award ceremony where the title winners refused to receive the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been humorous if it weren't so distressing.

Those following the women's World Cup might well have anticipated, and even pictured, a different approach on Sunday. Female athletics is supposed to offer a new blueprint for the sports world and an different path to negative traditions. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members extending the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her team would have made a powerful statement in an increasingly divided world.

It might have recognized the mutually adverse circumstances they have conquered and offered a meaningful gesture that politics are fleeting compared with the connection of women's unity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a place alongside the additional positive narrative at this tournament: the exiled Afghanistan cricketers invited as guests, being reintegrated into the sport four years after the Taliban drove them from their homes.

Rather, we've collided with the firm boundaries of the female athletic community. No one is shocked. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their country, worshipped like gods, treated like nobility. They enjoy all the benefits and influence that comes with fame and money. If Yadav and his side are unable to defy the directives of an authoritarian prime minister, what chance do the female players have, whose improved position is only recently attained?

Perhaps it's even more surprising that we're still talking about a handshake. The Asia Cup uproar prompted much analysis of that particular sporting ritual, not least because it is considered the definitive symbol of fair play. But Yadav's refusal was far less significant than what he stated right after the initial match.

The India captain deemed the victory stand the "perfect occasion" to dedicate 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 will motivate us all," Yadav told the post-game reporter, "so we can provide them further cause in the field each time we get an opportunity to bring them joy."

This reflects the current reality: a live interview by a sporting leader openly celebrating a armed attack in which many people died. Two years ago, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a solitary humanitarian message approved by the ICC, including the peace dove – a literal emblem of harmony – on his bat. Yadav was eventually penalized 30% of his match fee for the comments. He wasn't the only one disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated aircraft crashing and made "6-0" gestures to the audience in the later game – also referencing the hostilities – was given the identical penalty.

This isn't a issue of not respecting your opponents – this is athletics appropriated as patriotic messaging. It's pointless to be ethically angered by a absent greeting when that's merely a minor plot development in the narrative of two nations already employing cricket as a political lever and weapon of indirect conflict. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made that explicit with his post-final tweet ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same – India wins!"). Naqvi, for his part, blares that sport and politics shouldn't mix, while double-stacking roles as a state official and head of the PCB, and publicly tagging the Indian leader about his country's "embarrassing losses" on the battlefield.

The takeaway from this situation shouldn't be about the sport, or India, or Pakistan, in isolation. It serves as a caution that the concept of sports diplomacy is finished, for the time being. The very game that was used to build bridges between the countries 20 years ago is now being utilized to inflame tensions between them by people who are fully aware what they're attempting, and massive followings who are active supporters.

Polarisation is affecting every aspect of public life and as the greatest of the international cultural influences, sport is constantly vulnerable: it's a form of entertainment that directly encourages you to pick a side. Plenty who find India's actions towards Pakistan aggressive will still champion a Ukrainian tennis player's right to decline meeting a Russian opponent across the net.

Should anyone still believe that the sporting arena is a magical safe space that brings nations together, review the golf tournament highlights. The behavior of the New York spectators was the "perfect tribute" of a golf-loving president who openly incites hatred against his opponents. We observed not just the decline of the usual sporting principles of fairness and shared courtesy, but how quickly this might be accepted and nodded through when athletes – such as US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and sanction it.

A post-game greeting is supposed to represent that, at the conclusion of any contest, no matter how intense or heated, the participants are setting aside their simulated rivalry and acknowledging their common humanity. Should the rivalry is genuine – if it requires its players emerge in outspoken endorsement of their respective militaries – then why are you bothering with the sporting field at all? You might as well don the military uniform immediately.