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It's only in recent years that female athletes in the South Asian region have gained recognition as serious cricketers. For generations, they faced scorn, disapproval, ostracism – including the risk of physical harm – to follow their passion. Currently, India is hosting a global tournament 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.

This would, therefore, be a travesty if this weekend's talk centered around their male counterparts. However, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, comparison are unavoidable. Not because the host team are strong favorites to triumph, but because they are not expected to shake hands with their opposition. The handshake controversy, as it's been dubbed, will have a another chapter.

In case you weren't aware of the initial incident, it occurred at the conclusion of the male team's group stage game between India and Pakistan at the continental championship last month when the India captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and his team disappeared the field to evade the customary friendly post-match ritual. A couple of same-y follow-ups transpired in the Super4 match and the final, climaxing in a protracted award ceremony where the new champions refused to receive the trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been comic if it weren't so tragic.

Observers of the female cricket World Cup might well have anticipated, and even pictured, a alternative conduct on Sunday. Female athletics is intended to offer a fresh model for the industry and an different path to toxic legacies. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's players offering the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her squad would have made a powerful statement in an ever more polarized world.

It might have acknowledged the shared challenging environment they have conquered and offered a symbolic reminder that politics are fleeting compared with the connection of female solidarity. It would certainly have deserved a place alongside the additional good news story at this tournament: the displaced Afghanistan players invited as observers, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their homes.

Rather, we've encountered the firm boundaries of the sporting sisterhood. No one is shocked. India's male cricketers are huge stars in their homeland, worshipped like gods, treated like royalty. They enjoy all the privilege and influence that comes with fame and money. If Yadav and his side are unable to defy the diktats of an strong-handed prime minister, what chance do the female players have, whose improved position is only recently attained?

Maybe it's more astonishing that we're still talking about a handshake. The Asia Cup uproar led to much deconstruction 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 stated right after the initial match.

Skipper Yadav deemed the winners' podium the "ideal moment" 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 told the post-game reporter, "and we give them further cause on the ground each time we have the chance to bring them joy."

This reflects the current reality: a live interview by a sporting leader publicly praising a armed attack in which dozens died. Two years ago, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a single peaceful symbol past the ICC, not even the peace dove – a literal sign of harmony – on his equipment. Yadav was eventually fined 30% of his match fee for the comments. He was not the only one disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated plane crashes and made "6-0" signals to the audience 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 co-opted as patriotic messaging. There's no use to be ethically angered by a missing greeting when that's merely a small detail in the story of two countries actively using cricket as a diplomatic tool and instrument of proxy war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stated this with his social media post after the final ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, blares that sport and politics shouldn't mix, while holding dual positions as a state official and head of the PCB, and directly mentioning the Indian leader about his country's "humiliating defeats" on the battlefield.

The lesson from this episode is not about the sport, or the Indian side, or the Pakistani team, in isolation. It's a warning that the notion of ping pong diplomacy is finished, for the time being. The very game that was used to foster connections between the nations 20 years ago is now being utilized to heighten hostilities between them by individuals who are fully aware what they're doing, and massive followings who are eager participants.

Division is affecting every aspect of society and as the most prominent of the global soft powers, sport is always vulnerable: it's a type of leisure that directly invites you to pick a side. Plenty who consider India's gesture towards Pakistan belligerent 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 protected environment that brings nations together, review the Ryder Cup highlights. The behavior of the Bethpage spectators was the "perfect tribute" of a leader who enjoys the sport who openly incites animosity against his opponents. We observed not just the erosion of the typical sporting values of equity and shared courtesy, but how quickly this might be normalized and tacitly approved when athletes – like US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and sanction it.

A post-game greeting is meant to represent that, at the end of every competition, however bitter or bad-tempered, the competitors are setting aside their pretend enmity and acknowledging their common humanity. Should the rivalry is genuine – if it requires its athletes emerge in vocal support of their national armed forces – then what is the purpose with the sporting field at all? It would be equivalent to put on the military uniform now.