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It is merely in recent years that women in the subcontinent have gained recognition as serious cricketers. Over many years, they endured ridicule, disapproval, exclusion – including the risk of physical harm – to follow their love for the game. Now, India is staging a World Cup with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the home nation's athletes could emerge as national treasures if they achieve their first championship win.

It would, therefore, be a travesty if this weekend's discussion centered around their male counterparts. And yet, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, comparison are inevitable. And not because the home side are highly favoured to triumph, but because they are unlikely to exchange greetings with their rivals. The handshake controversy, as it's been dubbed, will have a another chapter.

If you missed the original drama, it took place at the end of the men's group match between India and Pakistan at the continental championship last month when the India captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and his squad hurried off the field to evade the customary post-game post-match ritual. Two similar follow-ups occurred in the knockout round and the final, culminating in a protracted award ceremony where the title winners declined to accept the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's chair, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been comic if it hadn't been so distressing.

Observers of the women's World Cup might well have anticipated, and even pictured, a different approach on Sunday. Women's sport is supposed to provide a new blueprint for the industry and an alternative to toxic traditions. The image of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members offering the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her team would have made a strong message in an increasingly divided world.

It might have recognized the mutually adverse circumstances they have conquered and provided a symbolic reminder that politics are temporary compared with the connection of women's unity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a place alongside the other good news story at this tournament: the displaced Afghanistan cricketers invited as guests, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban drove them from their country.

Instead, we've collided with the hard limits of the sporting sisterhood. No one is shocked. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their homeland, worshipped like gods, treated like royalty. They enjoy all the privilege and power that accompanies fame and wealth. If Yadav and his side can't balk the diktats of an authoritarian prime minister, what hope do the female players have, whose improved position is only recently attained?

Maybe it's even more surprising that we're continuing to discuss about a simple greeting. The Asia Cup uproar led to much deconstruction of that specific sporting ritual, especially because it is viewed as the ultimate marker of fair play. But Yadav's refusal was far less significant than what he stated right after the initial match.

Skipper Yadav considered the winners' podium the "perfect occasion" to dedicate his team's victory to the armed forces who had participated in India's strikes on Pakistan in May, referred to as Operation Sindoor. "My wish is they continue to inspire us all," Yadav informed the post-game reporter, "so we can provide them more reasons in the field each time we get an opportunity to make them smile."

This reflects the current reality: a live interview by a sporting leader openly celebrating 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 literal emblem of peace – on his equipment. Yadav was subsequently penalized 30% of his game earnings for the comments. He was not the sole individual sanctioned. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked plane crashes and made "6-0" signals to the audience in the Super4 match – also referencing the hostilities – was given the same punishment.

This is not a issue of failing to honor your rivals – this is athletics co-opted as nationalistic propaganda. It's pointless to be morally outraged by a missing greeting when that's merely a minor plot development in the narrative of two nations actively using cricket as a diplomatic tool and weapon of proxy war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stated this with his post-final tweet ("Operation Sindoor on the cricket pitch. Outcome is the same – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, blares that athletics and governance shouldn't mix, while double-stacking roles as a state official and head of the PCB, and directly mentioning the Indian leader about his country's "embarrassing losses" on the battlefield.

The lesson from this situation is not about cricket, or India, or Pakistan, in isolation. It serves as a caution that the notion of ping pong diplomacy is finished, at least for now. The very game that was employed to foster connections between the nations 20 years ago is now being used to heighten hostilities between them by individuals who know exactly what they're doing, and massive followings who are active supporters.

Polarisation is infecting every aspect of public life and as the most prominent of the global soft powers, sport is always susceptible: it's a form of leisure that directly invites you to pick a side. Many who consider India's gesture towards Pakistan belligerent will nonetheless champion a Ukrainian tennis player's entitlement to decline meeting a Russian opponent across the net.

Should anyone still believe that the sporting arena is a magical safe space that unites countries, review the Ryder Cup recap. The conduct of the New York crowds was the "ideal reflection" of a leader who enjoys the sport who publicly provokes animosity against his opponents. Not only did we witness the decline of the typical sporting principles of equity and mutual respect, but how quickly this might be accepted and nodded through when sportspeople themselves – like US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and penalize it.

A handshake is meant to signify that, at the end of every competition, however intense or heated, the competitors are putting off their simulated rivalry and acknowledging their shared human bond. Should the rivalry isn't pretend – if it requires its players come out in vocal support of their national armed forces – then what is the purpose with the arena of sports at all? It would be equivalent to put on the military uniform now.