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It is merely in the past few seasons that women in the subcontinent have been acknowledged as professional cricket players. For generations, they faced scorn, disapproval, exclusion – including the threat of physical harm – 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 national treasures if they achieve their first championship win.

It would, then, be a travesty if the upcoming talk centered around their men's teams. And yet, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are unavoidable. And not because the home side are highly favoured to win, but because they are not expected to shake hands with their opposition. Handshakegate, as it's been dubbed, will have a fourth instalment.

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 continental championship last month when the India captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and his squad hurried off the pitch to avoid the customary post-game post-match ritual. Two similar follow-ups transpired in the knockout round and the championship game, climaxing in a protracted award ceremony where the new champions declined to accept the trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. The situation might have seemed humorous if it weren't so tragic.

Those following 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 new blueprint for the industry and an alternative to negative legacies. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's players extending the hand of camaraderie to Fatima Sana and her squad would have made a powerful statement in an increasingly divided world.

Such an act could have acknowledged the shared challenging circumstances they have conquered and offered a symbolic reminder that political issues are fleeting compared with the bond of female solidarity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a spot alongside the additional good news story at this tournament: the displaced Afghanistan cricketers invited as guests, being reintegrated into the game four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their country.

Rather, we've encountered the hard limits of the female athletic community. This comes as no surprise. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their homeland, worshipped like deities, treated like royalty. They possess all the benefits and power that comes with 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 newly won?

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

The India captain considered the winners' podium 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. "My wish is they will inspire us all," Yadav told the post-game reporter, "so we can provide them more reasons on the ground 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. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja couldn't get a single peaceful symbol approved by the ICC, not even the dove logo – a direct emblem of harmony – on his bat. Yadav was eventually fined 30% of his match fee for the comments. He wasn't the only one disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked aircraft crashing and made "6-0" signals to the audience in the later game – similarly alluding to the conflict – received the same punishment.

This isn't a matter of failing to honor your rivals – this is athletics appropriated as nationalistic propaganda. There's no use to be ethically angered by a absent greeting when that's simply a minor plot development in the story of two countries actively using cricket as a diplomatic tool and instrument of proxy war. 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, for his part, blares that sport and politics must remain separate, while holding dual roles 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 situation shouldn't be about cricket, or India, or the Pakistani team, in isolation. It's a warning that the concept of sports diplomacy is finished, for the time being. The same sport that was used to build bridges between the nations 20 years ago is now being used to heighten hostilities between them by individuals who know exactly what they're doing, and huge fanbases who are active supporters.

Polarisation is affecting every realm of public life and as the most prominent of the international cultural influences, sport is always vulnerable: it's a form of entertainment that literally encourages you to pick a side. Plenty who consider India's actions towards Pakistan aggressive will still champion a Ukrainian tennis player's right to decline meeting a Russian opponent across the net.

Should anyone still believe that the athletic field is a protected environment that brings nations together, go back and watch the golf tournament recap. The conduct of the New York crowds was the "ideal reflection" of a leader who enjoys the sport who openly incites hatred against his opponents. We observed not just the decline of the usual sporting values of equity and shared courtesy, but how quickly this might be accepted and nodded through when athletes – such as US captain Keegan Bradley – fail to acknowledge and penalize it.

A post-game greeting is meant to represent that, at the end of any contest, however intense or bad-tempered, the competitors are putting off their simulated rivalry and acknowledging their shared human bond. If the enmity is genuine – if it requires its athletes come out in outspoken endorsement of their respective militaries – then why are you bothering with the arena of sports at all? It would be equivalent to don the military uniform now.