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It's only in the past few seasons that women in the South Asian region have been acknowledged as professional cricket players. For generations, they endured scorn, disapproval, exclusion – including the risk of physical harm – to follow their love for the game. Currently, India is staging a World Cup with a prize fund of $13.8 million, where the host country's athletes could become beloved icons if they secure their first tournament victory.

It would, then, be a great injustice if the upcoming discussion centered around their male counterparts. And yet, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are inevitable. Not because the home side are highly favoured to win, but because they are not expected to shake hands with their rivals. Handshakegate, if we must call it that, will have a another chapter.

If you missed the initial incident, it occurred at the conclusion of the men's group match 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 handshake tradition. Two same-y sequels occurred in the knockout round and the championship game, climaxing in a long-delayed presentation ceremony where the title winners declined to receive the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been humorous if it weren't so distressing.

Those following the female cricket World Cup might well have hoped for, and even pictured, a alternative conduct on Sunday. Women's sport is supposed to offer a new blueprint for the sports world and an alternative to toxic traditions. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members extending the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her team would have made a strong message in an increasingly divided world.

Such an act could have acknowledged the shared challenging environment they have conquered and offered a meaningful gesture that politics are temporary compared with the connection of women's unity. It would certainly have earned a place alongside the additional good news story at this competition: the displaced Afghanistan cricketers invited as observers, being reintegrated into the game four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their country.

Instead, we've encountered the firm boundaries of the sporting sisterhood. This comes as no surprise. India's men's players are mega celebrities in their homeland, idolized like gods, regarded like royalty. They possess all the privilege and power that comes with stardom and money. If Yadav and his team can't balk the diktats of an strong-handed leader, what chance do the female players have, whose elevated status is only recently attained?

Perhaps it's more astonishing that we're continuing to discuss about a simple greeting. The Asia Cup furore led to much analysis of that particular sporting ritual, not least because it is considered the ultimate marker of fair play. But Yadav's refusal was much less important than what he stated immediately after the first game.

The India captain considered the winners' podium the "ideal moment" to dedicate his team's win to the armed forces who had participated in India's strikes on Pakistan in May, referred to as Operation Sindoor. "I hope they will inspire us all," Yadav told the post-match interviewer, "so we can provide them more reasons in the field each time we have the chance to make them smile."

This reflects the current reality: a real-time discussion by a sporting leader publicly praising a armed attack in which many people lost their lives. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja couldn't get a single humanitarian message approved by the ICC, not even the peace dove – a direct emblem of peace – on his bat. Yadav was eventually fined 30% of his game earnings for the remarks. He was not the only one disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked plane crashes and made "6-0" gestures to the audience in the Super4 match – also referencing the conflict – was given the same punishment.

This isn't a matter of not respecting your rivals – this is sport co-opted as patriotic messaging. There's no use to be ethically angered by a absent greeting when that's simply a small detail in the story of two countries actively using cricket as a diplomatic tool and instrument of proxy war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stated this with his post-final tweet ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. The result remains unchanged – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, blares that sport and politics shouldn't mix, while holding dual roles as a government minister and chair of the PCB, and directly mentioning the Indian prime minister about his country's "humiliating defeats" on the battlefield.

The takeaway from this situation shouldn't be about the sport, or India, or Pakistan, in isolation. It's a warning that the concept of sports diplomacy is over, at least for now. The very game that was employed to build bridges between the countries 20 years ago is now being utilized to inflame tensions between them by people who know exactly what they're attempting, and massive followings who are eager participants.

Polarisation is infecting every realm of society and as the most prominent of the global soft powers, sport is always susceptible: it's a type of entertainment that directly encourages you to choose a team. Many who find India's gesture towards Pakistan aggressive will nonetheless support a Ukrainian tennis player's entitlement to decline meeting a Russian opponent 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 publicly provokes hatred against his opponents. We observed not just the decline of the usual sporting principles of equity and shared courtesy, but the speed at which this might be accepted and nodded through when sportspeople themselves – like US captain Keegan Bradley – fail to acknowledge and penalize it.

A post-game greeting is supposed to represent that, at the end of any contest, no matter how bitter or heated, the participants are putting off their pretend enmity and acknowledging their shared human bond. If the enmity isn't pretend – if it requires its players emerge in vocal support of their respective militaries – then what is the purpose with the arena of sports at all? You might as well put on the fatigues immediately.