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It's only in recent years that women in the South Asian region have been acknowledged as professional cricket players. Over many years, they faced scorn, censure, exclusion – even the threat of violence – to pursue 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 beloved icons if they secure their maiden tournament victory.

It would, therefore, be a travesty if this weekend's discussion centered around their male counterparts. And yet, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, comparison are inevitable. And not because the home side are strong favorites to win, but because they are unlikely to shake hands with their rivals. The handshake controversy, as it's been dubbed, will have a fourth instalment.

If you missed the original drama, it occurred at the conclusion of the men's group match between India and Pakistan at the Asia Cup last month when the India skipper, Suryakumar Yadav, and his team hurried off the field to avoid the customary friendly handshake tradition. Two same-y follow-ups transpired in the Super4 match and the championship game, culminating in a long-delayed award ceremony where the title winners declined to accept the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. The situation might have seemed humorous 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 fresh model 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 sent a strong message in an ever more polarized world.

Such an act could have recognized the shared challenging environment they have conquered and provided a symbolic reminder that political issues are fleeting compared with the bond of women's unity. Undoubtedly, it would have earned a place alongside the other positive narrative 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 homes.

Instead, we've collided with the firm boundaries of the sporting sisterhood. No one is shocked. India's men's players are mega celebrities in their homeland, worshipped like deities, treated like nobility. They possess all the privilege and power that accompanies fame and money. If Yadav and his side are unable to defy the directives of an authoritarian leader, what chance do the female players have, whose elevated status is only recently attained?

Maybe it's more astonishing that we're continuing to discuss about a handshake. The Asia Cup uproar led to much analysis of that specific sporting ritual, not least because it is considered the ultimate marker of fair play. But Yadav's snub was much less important than what he stated right after the initial match.

The India captain considered the victory stand the "perfect occasion" to dedicate his team's victory to the military personnel who had taken part in India's strikes on Pakistan in May, known as Operation Sindoor. "I hope they will inspire us all," Yadav told the post-game reporter, "and we give them further cause in the field whenever we have the chance to make them smile."

This is where we are: a live interview by a sporting leader openly celebrating a military assault in which dozens died. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a single peaceful symbol approved by the ICC, including the dove logo – a direct sign of peace – on his equipment. Yadav was subsequently fined 30% of his game earnings for the remarks. He wasn't the sole individual sanctioned. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated aircraft crashing and made "6-0" signals to the crowd in the Super4 match – also referencing the hostilities – received the identical penalty.

This isn't a issue of not respecting your rivals – this is athletics appropriated as nationalistic propaganda. It's pointless to be ethically angered by a missing greeting when that's simply a small detail in the narrative of two countries already employing cricket as a political lever and weapon of indirect conflict. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made that explicit with his social media post after the final ("Operation Sindoor on the cricket pitch. The result remains unchanged – India wins!"). Naqvi, for his part, blares that sport and politics must remain separate, while double-stacking roles 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 takeaway from this situation shouldn't be about the sport, or India, or Pakistan, in separation. It's a warning that the notion of sports diplomacy is finished, at least for now. The same sport that was employed to build bridges between the countries 20 years ago is now being used to heighten hostilities between them by people who know exactly what they're attempting, and huge fanbases who are active supporters.

Polarisation is affecting every aspect of society and as the greatest of the global soft powers, athletics is constantly susceptible: it's a type of entertainment that literally invites you to choose a team. Many who find India's gesture towards Pakistan belligerent will still champion a Ukrainian tennis player's entitlement to decline meeting a Russian opponent on the court.

If you're still kidding yourself that the sporting arena is a protected environment that brings nations together, go back and watch the Ryder Cup recap. The conduct of the Bethpage crowds was the "perfect tribute" of a leader who enjoys the sport who publicly provokes hatred against his adversaries. We observed not just the erosion of the typical sporting values of equity and shared courtesy, but the speed at which this might be accepted and tacitly approved when sportspeople themselves – like US captain Keegan Bradley – fail to acknowledge and sanction it.

A post-game greeting is supposed to signify that, at the end of any contest, no matter how intense or heated, the participants are putting off their simulated rivalry and recognizing their shared human bond. Should the rivalry isn't pretend – if it requires its athletes come out in outspoken endorsement of their respective militaries – then what is the purpose with the sporting field at all? It would be equivalent to don the military uniform now.