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It's only in recent years that women in the subcontinent have been acknowledged as serious cricketers. For generations, they faced ridicule, censure, exclusion – including the threat of physical harm – to follow their passion. Currently, India is hosting a global tournament with a prize fund of $13.8 million, where the home nation's players could become beloved icons if they secure their maiden championship win.

This would, therefore, be a great injustice if this weekend's discussion centered around their men's teams. However, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are unavoidable. And not because the host team are highly favoured to win, but because they are unlikely to shake hands with their opposition. The handshake controversy, as it's been dubbed, will have a fourth instalment.

If you missed the original drama, it occurred at the end of the male team's group stage game between India and Pakistan at the Asia Cup last month when the India skipper, Suryakumar Yadav, and his squad hurried off the field to avoid the usual post-game post-match ritual. A couple of same-y follow-ups transpired in the Super4 match and the final, climaxing in a long-delayed award ceremony where the new champions refused to accept the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been comic if it hadn't been so tragic.

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 offer a fresh model for the industry and an different path to toxic legacies. The image of Harmanpreet Kaur's players extending the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her squad would have sent a strong message in an increasingly divided world.

It might have recognized the shared challenging circumstances they have conquered and offered a symbolic reminder that political issues are fleeting compared with the bond of women's unity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a place alongside the other good news story at this competition: the displaced Afghanistan players invited as guests, being reintegrated into the sport four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their homes.

Instead, we've encountered the firm boundaries of the sporting sisterhood. No one is shocked. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their homeland, worshipped like gods, treated like nobility. They possess all the benefits and influence that comes with 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 recently attained?

Maybe it's more astonishing that we're continuing to discuss about a handshake. The Asia Cup uproar prompted much analysis of that particular sporting ritual, especially because it is considered the ultimate marker of sportsmanship. But Yadav's refusal was much less important than what he said right after the first game.

The India captain deemed the winners' podium the "ideal moment" to dedicate his team's victory to the armed forces who had taken part in India's strikes on Pakistan in May, known as Operation Sindoor. "My wish is they continue to motivate us all," Yadav told the post-match interviewer, "and we give them more reasons in the field whenever we get an opportunity to make them smile."

This is where we are: a live interview by a sporting leader openly celebrating a military assault in which many people died. Two years ago, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja couldn't get a solitary peaceful symbol approved by the ICC, including the dove logo – a direct emblem of harmony – on his equipment. Yadav was subsequently fined 30% of his match fee for the remarks. He wasn't the sole individual disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked aircraft crashing and made "6-0" signals to the audience in the Super4 match – similarly alluding to the conflict – received the identical penalty.

This isn't a issue of not respecting your rivals – this is sport appropriated as patriotic messaging. It's pointless to be morally outraged by a absent greeting when that's merely a minor plot development in the narrative of two countries actively using cricket as a political lever 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. Outcome is the same – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, proclaims that athletics and governance shouldn't mix, while holding dual roles as a government minister and head of the PCB, and directly mentioning the Indian leader about his country's "embarrassing losses" on the battlefield.

The lesson from this situation shouldn't be about cricket, or India, or Pakistan, in separation. It's a warning that the notion of ping pong diplomacy is finished, at least for now. The very game that was employed to build bridges between the countries 20 years ago is now being utilized to heighten hostilities between them by people who know exactly what they're attempting, and huge fanbases who are active supporters.

Division is infecting every realm of public life and as the most prominent of the international cultural influences, athletics is constantly susceptible: it's a form of entertainment that literally encourages you to pick a side. Plenty who consider India's actions towards Pakistan aggressive will nonetheless support 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 protected environment that unites countries, go back and watch the golf tournament recap. The behavior of the Bethpage spectators was the "perfect tribute" of a leader who enjoys the sport who openly incites animosity against his adversaries. We observed not just the erosion of the typical sporting principles of equity and shared courtesy, but the speed at which this might be normalized and nodded through when sportspeople themselves – like US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and penalize it.

A handshake is meant to represent that, at the conclusion of every competition, however bitter or heated, the competitors are putting off their pretend enmity and acknowledging their common humanity. If the enmity is genuine – demanding that its players come out in outspoken endorsement of their respective militaries – then what is the purpose with the sporting field at all? You might as well put on the military uniform now.