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It's only in the past few seasons that women in the South Asian region have been acknowledged as serious cricketers. Over many years, they endured ridicule, censure, ostracism – even the risk of physical harm – to follow their passion. Currently, India is staging a World Cup with a prize fund of $13.8 million, where the host country's athletes could emerge as beloved icons if they secure their first championship win.

This would, therefore, be a travesty if the upcoming talk focused on their men's teams. However, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are unavoidable. Not because the host team are highly favoured to win, but because they are not expected to exchange greetings with their opposition. The handshake controversy, as it's been dubbed, will have a fourth instalment.

If you missed the original drama, it took place at the end 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 disappeared the field to evade the customary post-game 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 trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been humorous if it weren't so tragic.

Those following the female cricket World Cup might well have hoped for, and even pictured, a different approach on Sunday. Women's sport is intended to offer a new blueprint for the industry and an alternative to negative legacies. The image of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members offering the hand of camaraderie to Fatima Sana and her team would have sent a strong message in an increasingly divided world.

It might have acknowledged the shared challenging circumstances they have conquered and provided a meaningful gesture that politics are fleeting compared with the connection of female solidarity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a spot alongside the additional good news story at this competition: the exiled Afghanistan players welcomed as guests, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their homes.

Rather, we've encountered the hard limits of the sporting sisterhood. No one is shocked. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their country, idolized like gods, regarded like royalty. They possess all the privilege and power that accompanies fame and money. If Yadav and his team are unable to defy the directives of an strong-handed leader, what hope do the female players have, whose elevated status is only recently attained?

Perhaps it's even more surprising that we're continuing to discuss about a handshake. The Asia Cup furore prompted much deconstruction of that specific sporting ritual, especially because it is considered the definitive symbol of sportsmanship. But Yadav's snub was far less significant than what he stated immediately after the first game.

Skipper Yadav deemed the winners' podium the "perfect occasion" to dedicate his team's victory to the military personnel who had taken part in India's attacks on Pakistan in May, referred to as Operation Sindoor. "My wish is they will motivate us all," Yadav told the post-game reporter, "so we can provide them more reasons in the field whenever we have the chance to bring them joy."

This is where we are: a live interview by a sporting leader publicly praising a armed attack in which dozens lost their lives. Two years ago, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja couldn't get a single humanitarian message approved by the ICC, including the peace dove – a literal emblem of peace – on his bat. Yadav was eventually penalized 30% of his match fee for the comments. He wasn't the only one sanctioned. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked plane crashes and made "6-0" gestures to the audience in the Super4 match – similarly alluding to the hostilities – was given the same punishment.

This isn't a issue of not respecting your opponents – this is athletics appropriated as nationalistic propaganda. There's no use to be morally outraged by a absent greeting when that's merely a minor plot development in the story of two nations already employing cricket as a diplomatic tool and instrument of indirect conflict. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made that explicit with his social media post after the final ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. The result remains unchanged – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, proclaims that athletics and governance shouldn't mix, while holding dual positions as a government minister and chair of the PCB, and directly mentioning the Indian prime minister about his country's "embarrassing losses" on the battlefield.

The takeaway from this episode shouldn't be about the sport, or the Indian side, or Pakistan, in isolation. It's a warning that the notion of sports diplomacy is finished, at least for now. The very game that was used to foster connections between the countries 20 years ago is now being utilized to inflame tensions between them by individuals who are fully aware what they're attempting, and massive followings who are eager participants.

Division is infecting every aspect of public life and as the greatest of the international cultural influences, athletics is always susceptible: it's a form of entertainment that literally encourages you to pick a side. Plenty who consider India's actions towards Pakistan belligerent will still champion a Ukrainian tennis player's entitlement to decline meeting a Russian competitor on the court.

Should anyone still believe that the sporting arena is a magical safe space that brings nations together, review the golf tournament highlights. The conduct of the New York crowds was the "perfect tribute" of a leader who enjoys the sport who openly incites hatred against his adversaries. Not only did we witness the decline of the usual sporting values of fairness and mutual respect, but how quickly this might be normalized and nodded through when sportspeople themselves – like US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and penalize it.

A post-game greeting is supposed to signify that, at the end of any contest, however intense or bad-tempered, the competitors are setting aside their pretend enmity and recognizing their shared human bond. Should the rivalry isn't pretend – if it requires its athletes emerge in vocal support of their respective militaries – then what is the purpose with the sporting field at all? You might as well don the military uniform now.