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It is merely in the past few seasons that female athletes in the South Asian region have gained recognition as serious cricketers. Over many years, they faced ridicule, disapproval, ostracism – even the threat of violence – to follow their passion. Currently, India is staging a World Cup with a prize fund of $13.8 million, where the host country's athletes could become national treasures if they secure their maiden tournament victory.

It would, then, be a travesty if this weekend's talk centered around their male counterparts. However, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are inevitable. Not because the home side are strong favorites to win, but because they are unlikely to shake hands with their rivals. The handshake controversy, if we must call it that, will have a another chapter.

If you missed the original drama, it occurred 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 disappeared the pitch to evade the customary friendly handshake tradition. Two similar sequels occurred in the Super4 match and the final, climaxing in a long-delayed award ceremony where the new champions refused to accept the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. The situation might have seemed comic 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 supposed to provide a new blueprint for the sports world and an alternative to negative legacies. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members extending the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her squad would have made a strong message in an increasingly divided world.

It might have acknowledged the shared challenging circumstances they have conquered and offered a symbolic reminder that politics are temporary compared with the bond of women's unity. It would certainly have deserved a place alongside the other positive narrative at this tournament: the displaced Afghanistan players invited as observers, being reintegrated into the game four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their country.

Rather, we've collided with the hard limits of the female athletic community. No one is shocked. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their country, idolized like deities, treated like nobility. They enjoy all the privilege and influence that accompanies stardom and money. If Yadav and his team can't balk the diktats of an strong-handed leader, what hope do the women have, whose improved position is only newly won?

Perhaps it's even more surprising that we're continuing to discuss about a handshake. The Asia Cup furore prompted much analysis of that particular sporting ritual, especially because it is considered the ultimate marker of sportsmanship. But Yadav's refusal was much less important than what he said right after the first game.

The India captain deemed 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, known as Operation Sindoor. "My wish is they will motivate us all," Yadav informed the post-game reporter, "so we can provide them further cause on the ground whenever we have the chance to bring them joy."

This reflects the current reality: a real-time discussion by a team captain openly celebrating a armed attack in which dozens lost their lives. Two years ago, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja couldn't get a solitary humanitarian message past the ICC, including the dove logo – a literal emblem of harmony – on his bat. Yadav was subsequently fined 30% of his match fee for the comments. He was not the only one disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked aircraft crashing and made "six-zero" gestures to the crowd in the Super4 match – also referencing the conflict – received the identical penalty.

This isn't a matter of failing to honor your opponents – this is sport appropriated as nationalistic propaganda. There's no use to be ethically angered by a absent greeting when that's merely a small detail in the story of two nations actively using cricket as a diplomatic tool and instrument of indirect conflict. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made that explicit with his post-final tweet ("Operation Sindoor on the cricket pitch. Outcome is the same – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, proclaims that athletics and governance shouldn't mix, while double-stacking roles as a government minister and chair of the PCB, and directly mentioning the Indian leader about his country's "embarrassing losses" on the war front.

The lesson from this episode shouldn't be about the sport, or India, or the Pakistani team, in separation. It serves as a caution that the notion of sports diplomacy is over, at least for now. The very game that was employed to foster connections between the countries 20 years ago is now being utilized to inflame tensions between them by individuals who know exactly what they're attempting, and massive followings who are eager participants.

Division is infecting every realm of public life and as the greatest of the global soft powers, sport is constantly susceptible: it's a type of leisure that literally invites you to pick a side. Many who find India's gesture 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 athletic field is a magical safe space that unites countries, go back and watch the golf tournament highlights. The conduct of the New York crowds was the "ideal reflection" of a golf-loving president who publicly provokes animosity against his opponents. Not only did we witness the erosion of the usual sporting principles of fairness and mutual respect, but the speed at which this might be accepted and tacitly approved when sportspeople themselves – like US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and sanction it.

A handshake is supposed to represent that, at the conclusion of every competition, no matter how bitter or bad-tempered, the competitors are setting aside their simulated rivalry and acknowledging their common humanity. If the enmity is genuine – if it requires its athletes come out in outspoken endorsement of their national armed forces – then what is the purpose with the arena of sports at all? You might as well don the fatigues now.