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It is merely in recent years that female athletes in the South Asian region have gained recognition as serious cricketers. Over many years, they faced ridicule, censure, exclusion – even the risk of physical harm – to follow their love for the game. Now, India is staging a World Cup with a prize fund of $13.8 million, where the host country's players could become beloved icons if they secure their maiden tournament victory.

This would, then, be a great injustice if this weekend's talk centered around their men's teams. However, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are unavoidable. And not because the host team are highly favoured to triumph, but because they are not expected to shake hands with their opposition. Handshakegate, if we must call it that, will have a fourth instalment.

In case you weren't aware of the initial incident, it occurred at the conclusion of the men's group match between India and Pakistan at the Asia Cup last month when the India captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and his team disappeared the field to avoid the customary friendly handshake tradition. Two same-y sequels transpired in the knockout round and the championship game, climaxing in a long-delayed presentation ceremony where the title winners declined to receive the trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's chair, Mohsin Naqvi. The situation might have seemed comic if it hadn't been so distressing.

Observers of the female cricket World Cup might well have anticipated, and even pictured, a different approach on Sunday. Female athletics is intended to provide a new blueprint for the sports world and an different path to negative legacies. The image of Harmanpreet Kaur's players offering the hand of camaraderie to Fatima Sana and her squad would have made a powerful statement in an ever more polarized world.

It might have recognized the mutually adverse circumstances they have conquered and provided a symbolic reminder that political issues are fleeting compared with the bond of female solidarity. It would certainly have deserved a place alongside the additional good news story at this competition: the displaced Afghanistan cricketers welcomed as observers, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their country.

Rather, we've encountered the hard limits of the female athletic community. This comes as no surprise. India's men's players are huge stars in their homeland, worshipped like gods, treated like royalty. They enjoy all the privilege and influence that comes with stardom and wealth. If Yadav and his team can't balk the directives of an authoritarian prime minister, what chance do the women have, whose improved position is only recently attained?

Perhaps it's even more surprising that we're continuing to discuss about a simple greeting. The Asia Cup uproar led to much analysis of that particular sporting tradition, especially because it is viewed as the definitive symbol of fair play. But Yadav's refusal was much less important than what he said right after the initial match.

Skipper Yadav considered the victory stand the "perfect occasion" to devote his team's win to the military personnel who had participated in India's attacks on Pakistan in May, referred to as Operation Sindoor. "My wish is they continue to motivate us all," Yadav informed the post-match interviewer, "and we give them more reasons on the ground each time we have the chance to make them smile."

This reflects the current reality: a live interview by a sporting leader openly celebrating a military assault in which dozens lost their lives. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a single humanitarian message past the ICC, not even the dove logo – a literal sign of harmony – on his bat. Yadav was subsequently fined 30% of his game earnings for the comments. He wasn't the only one disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked aircraft crashing and made "6-0" signals to the crowd in the later game – similarly alluding to the hostilities – received the identical penalty.

This is not 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 simply a small detail in the narrative of two countries already employing cricket as a political lever and weapon of proxy war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stated this with his post-final tweet ("Operation Sindoor on the cricket pitch. The result remains unchanged – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, blares that athletics and governance shouldn't mix, while holding dual roles as a government minister and chair of the PCB, and publicly tagging the Indian prime minister about his country's "humiliating defeats" on the battlefield.

The lesson from this situation shouldn't be about the sport, or India, or Pakistan, in isolation. It's a warning that the concept of ping pong diplomacy is over, for the time being. The same sport that was used to foster connections between the nations 20 years ago is now being utilized to inflame tensions between them by people who are fully aware what they're attempting, and huge fanbases who are active supporters.

Division is infecting every aspect of public life and as the most prominent of the international cultural influences, athletics is constantly susceptible: it's a type of leisure that literally encourages you to pick a side. Many who consider India's gesture towards Pakistan aggressive will nonetheless champion a Ukrainian tennis player's right to refuse to greet a Russian opponent on the court.

If you're still kidding yourself that the sporting arena is a magical safe space that brings nations together, review the golf tournament recap. The conduct of the Bethpage spectators was the "ideal reflection" of a leader who enjoys the sport who openly incites hatred against his opponents. Not only did we witness the decline of the typical sporting values of fairness and mutual respect, but how quickly this might be accepted and tacitly approved when athletes – such as US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and penalize it.

A handshake is meant to signify that, at the conclusion of every competition, however bitter or heated, the competitors are setting aside their pretend enmity and recognizing their shared human bond. If the enmity is genuine – if it requires its athletes come out in vocal support of their respective militaries – then what is the purpose with the arena of sports at all? You might as well put on the fatigues immediately.