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It is merely in recent years that female athletes in the subcontinent have gained recognition as professional cricket players. For generations, they faced ridicule, disapproval, ostracism – even the threat of violence – to pursue their passion. Now, India is hosting 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 focused on their male counterparts. However, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, comparison are inevitable. And not because the home side are strong favorites to triumph, but because they are unlikely to shake hands with their opposition. The handshake controversy, as it's been dubbed, will have a another chapter.

If you missed the original drama, it occurred at the conclusion of the male team's group stage game between India and Pakistan at the Asia Cup last month when the India captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and his team hurried off the field to evade the usual friendly post-match ritual. A couple of similar sequels transpired in the knockout round and the championship game, climaxing in a protracted award ceremony where the title winners declined to accept the trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been comic if it hadn't been so distressing.

Observers of the women's World Cup might well have anticipated, and even imagined, a alternative conduct on Sunday. Women's sport is intended to offer a fresh model for the sports world and an different path to toxic legacies. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members offering the hand of camaraderie 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 meaningful gesture that political issues are temporary compared with the bond of female solidarity. Undoubtedly, it would have earned a place alongside the additional positive narrative at this competition: the displaced Afghanistan cricketers invited as guests, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their country.

Rather, 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, idolized like deities, regarded like royalty. They possess all the benefits and influence that comes with fame and wealth. If Yadav and his team can't balk the diktats of an authoritarian leader, what chance do the women have, whose improved position is only recently attained?

Maybe it's more astonishing that we're continuing to discuss about a simple greeting. The Asia Cup furore led to much deconstruction of that particular sporting ritual, not least because it is viewed as the ultimate marker of sportsmanship. But Yadav's refusal was far less significant than what he said immediately after the first game.

Skipper Yadav considered the victory stand the "perfect occasion" to dedicate his team's victory to the military personnel who had participated in India's strikes on Pakistan in May, known as Operation Sindoor. "My wish is they continue to inspire us all," Yadav told the post-match interviewer, "so we can provide them more reasons in the field whenever we have the chance to bring them joy."

This reflects the current reality: a real-time discussion by a team captain publicly praising a armed attack in which dozens lost their lives. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja couldn't get a solitary humanitarian message past the ICC, not even the dove logo – a direct sign of harmony – on his equipment. Yadav was eventually fined 30% of his match fee for the remarks. He was not the only one disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated aircraft crashing and made "6-0" signals to the audience in the Super4 match – similarly alluding to the hostilities – was given the identical penalty.

This is not a issue of not respecting your rivals – this is sport co-opted as patriotic messaging. It's pointless to be ethically angered by a missing greeting when that's merely a small detail in the narrative of two nations actively using cricket as a political lever 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 must remain separate, while double-stacking positions as a government minister and head of the PCB, and directly mentioning the Indian prime minister about his country's "embarrassing losses" on the battlefield.

The lesson from this situation shouldn't be about the sport, or India, or Pakistan, in separation. It serves as a caution 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 used to inflame tensions between them by individuals who are fully aware what they're doing, and huge fanbases who are active supporters.

Polarisation is infecting every aspect of public life and as the most prominent of the global soft powers, sport is always susceptible: it's a type of entertainment that literally invites you to choose a team. Many who find India's actions towards Pakistan belligerent will still champion a Ukrainian tennis player's right to decline meeting a Russian competitor across the net.

Should anyone still believe that the athletic field is a magical safe space that brings nations together, review the Ryder Cup highlights. The conduct of the New York spectators was the "perfect tribute" of a golf-loving president who openly incites animosity against his adversaries. Not only did we witness the decline of the typical sporting principles of equity and shared courtesy, but the speed at which this might be normalized and tacitly approved when sportspeople themselves – like US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and sanction it.

A post-game greeting is meant to signify that, at the end of any contest, no matter how bitter or bad-tempered, the participants are putting off their pretend enmity and acknowledging their shared human bond. If the enmity isn't pretend – demanding that its players emerge in vocal support of their respective militaries – then what is the purpose with the arena of sports at all? It would be equivalent to put on the fatigues immediately.