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It's only in recent years that female athletes in the South Asian region have gained recognition as professional cricket players. Over many years, they faced ridicule, disapproval, exclusion – including the risk of violence – to pursue their passion. Now, India is staging a global tournament with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the home nation's athletes could become beloved icons if they secure their first tournament victory.

It would, therefore, be a great injustice if the upcoming talk centered around their men's teams. And yet, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are unavoidable. And not because the host team are strong favorites to triumph, 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 initial incident, it took place at the end of the men's group match between India and Pakistan at the Asia Cup last month when the India captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and his squad disappeared the pitch to avoid the customary post-game post-match ritual. Two same-y sequels transpired in the Super4 match and the championship game, climaxing in a protracted award ceremony where the new champions refused to receive the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's chair, Mohsin Naqvi. The situation might have seemed comic if it hadn't been so tragic.

Observers of the female cricket World Cup might well have anticipated, and even imagined, a different approach on Sunday. Female athletics is intended to provide a new blueprint for the industry and an different path to toxic traditions. The image of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members extending the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her squad would have sent a powerful statement in an increasingly divided world.

It might have acknowledged the mutually adverse circumstances they have overcome and provided a symbolic reminder that politics are temporary compared with the bond of women's unity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a spot alongside the additional positive narrative at this tournament: the displaced Afghanistan players welcomed as observers, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban drove them from their country.

Instead, we've encountered the firm boundaries of the sporting sisterhood. No one is shocked. India's men's players are mega celebrities in their homeland, idolized like gods, regarded like royalty. They enjoy all the benefits and influence that accompanies stardom and wealth. If Yadav and his side are unable to defy the directives of an strong-handed leader, what chance do the women have, whose improved position is only newly won?

Perhaps 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 tradition, especially because it is viewed as the definitive symbol of sportsmanship. But Yadav's snub was much less important than what he stated right after the first game.

Skipper Yadav deemed the winners' podium the "perfect occasion" to devote his team's victory to the armed forces who had participated in India's attacks on Pakistan in May, known as Operation Sindoor. "I hope they continue to inspire us all," Yadav told the post-match interviewer, "so we can provide 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 armed attack in which dozens died. Two years ago, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a solitary humanitarian message past the ICC, including the dove logo – a direct emblem of harmony – on his bat. Yadav was subsequently fined 30% of his game earnings for the remarks. He wasn't the sole individual sanctioned. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked plane crashes and made "six-zero" signals to the crowd in the Super4 match – similarly alluding to the hostilities – received the same punishment.

This isn't a issue of failing to honor your rivals – this is sport appropriated as patriotic messaging. It's pointless to be ethically angered by a absent handshake when that's simply a small detail in the narrative of two nations actively using cricket as a diplomatic tool and instrument of indirect conflict. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stated this with his social media post after the final ("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 positions as a state official and head of the PCB, and publicly tagging the Indian prime minister about his country's "humiliating defeats" on the battlefield.

The takeaway from this episode is not about the sport, or the Indian side, or the Pakistani team, in separation. It serves as a caution that the notion of sports diplomacy is over, for the time being. The same sport that was used to build bridges between the nations 20 years ago is now being utilized to inflame tensions between them by people who know exactly what they're doing, and huge fanbases who are active supporters.

Polarisation is infecting every realm of public life and as the most prominent of the global soft powers, sport is always susceptible: it's a type of entertainment that directly invites you to choose a team. Many who consider India's gesture towards Pakistan belligerent will nonetheless champion a Ukrainian tennis player's entitlement to refuse to greet a Russian opponent on the court.

If you're still kidding yourself that the athletic field is a magical safe space that unites countries, review the golf tournament highlights. The behavior of the Bethpage crowds was the "ideal reflection" of a golf-loving president who publicly provokes animosity against his opponents. We observed not just the decline of the usual sporting principles of fairness and mutual respect, but how quickly this might be normalized and nodded through when athletes – like US captain Keegan Bradley – fail to acknowledge and penalize it.

A handshake is meant to represent that, at the conclusion of any contest, however intense or bad-tempered, the participants are setting aside their simulated rivalry and recognizing their shared human bond. If the enmity isn't pretend – demanding that its players emerge in outspoken endorsement of their national armed forces – then why are you bothering with the arena of sports at all? You might as well don the fatigues immediately.