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It is merely in the past few seasons that female athletes in the subcontinent have gained recognition as serious cricketers. Over many years, they faced scorn, disapproval, ostracism – including the risk of violence – to pursue their passion. Currently, India is staging a global tournament with a prize fund of $13.8 million, where the host country's athletes could become national treasures if they achieve their first championship win.

This would, then, be a great injustice if this weekend's discussion focused on their male counterparts. However, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, comparison are unavoidable. And not because the host team are highly favoured to triumph, but because they are unlikely to exchange greetings with their rivals. The handshake controversy, if we must call it that, will have a fourth instalment.

In case you weren't aware of the original drama, it occurred at the conclusion of the men's group match between India and Pakistan at the Asia Cup last month when the India captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and his team hurried off the pitch to evade the customary post-game post-match ritual. A couple of same-y follow-ups transpired in the knockout round and the final, culminating in a long-delayed award ceremony where the title winners refused to accept the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's chair, Mohsin Naqvi. The situation might have seemed humorous if it weren't so tragic.

Those following the female cricket World Cup might well have hoped for, and even pictured, a alternative conduct on Sunday. Women's sport is intended to provide a fresh model for the sports world and an different path to negative legacies. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members extending the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her squad would have sent a strong message in an increasingly divided world.

Such an act could have acknowledged the shared challenging environment they have overcome and offered a meaningful gesture that political issues are fleeting compared with the connection of female solidarity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a place alongside the additional good news story at this competition: the displaced Afghanistan cricketers invited as guests, being reintegrated into the sport four years after the Taliban drove them from their country.

Instead, we've encountered the firm boundaries of the female athletic community. No one is shocked. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their homeland, idolized like gods, treated like royalty. They possess all the benefits and influence that accompanies stardom and wealth. If Yadav and his side can't balk the diktats of an strong-handed leader, what hope do the female players have, whose elevated status is only newly won?

Maybe it's more astonishing that we're still talking about a handshake. The Asia Cup furore led to much deconstruction of that particular sporting tradition, especially because it is viewed as the definitive symbol of fair play. But Yadav's snub was much less important than what he said immediately after the first game.

Skipper Yadav considered the victory stand the "ideal moment" to devote his team's victory to the military personnel who had taken part in India's strikes on Pakistan in May, referred to as Operation Sindoor. "My wish is they continue to inspire us all," Yadav informed the post-game reporter, "so we can provide them more reasons on the ground each time we get an opportunity to bring them joy."

This is where we are: a real-time discussion by a sporting leader publicly praising a military assault in which dozens died. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a solitary peaceful symbol approved by the ICC, including the peace dove – a literal emblem of harmony – on his equipment. Yadav was subsequently penalized 30% of his match fee for the comments. He wasn't the only one disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated plane crashes and made "six-zero" signals to the audience in the later game – also referencing the hostilities – was given the identical penalty.

This is not a issue of failing to honor your rivals – this is sport co-opted as nationalistic propaganda. There's no use to be ethically angered by a missing greeting when that's merely a minor plot development in the narrative 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 post-final tweet ("Operation Sindoor on the cricket pitch. Outcome is the same – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, proclaims that sport and politics must remain separate, while double-stacking positions as a state official and chair of the PCB, and publicly tagging the Indian leader about his country's "embarrassing losses" on the war front.

The lesson from this episode shouldn't be about the sport, or India, or Pakistan, in isolation. It's a warning that the concept of sports diplomacy is over, for the time being. The very game that was employed to build bridges between the nations 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 eager participants.

Division is affecting every aspect of society and as the most prominent of the global soft powers, athletics is always vulnerable: it's a type of leisure that literally encourages you to pick a side. Many who find India's actions towards Pakistan aggressive will nonetheless champion a Ukrainian tennis player's right to decline meeting a Russian opponent across the net.

Should anyone still believe that the sporting arena is a protected environment that brings nations together, go back and watch the golf tournament highlights. The conduct of the New York spectators was the "perfect tribute" of a golf-loving president who publicly provokes hatred against his adversaries. Not only did we witness the decline of the usual sporting values of equity and shared courtesy, but the speed at which this might be accepted and tacitly approved when sportspeople themselves – like US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and sanction it.

A handshake is meant to represent that, at the conclusion of any contest, no matter how intense or bad-tempered, the competitors are putting off their pretend enmity and recognizing their common humanity. Should the rivalry isn't pretend – if it requires its players emerge in vocal support of their respective militaries – then what is the purpose with the sporting field at all? It would be equivalent to put on the fatigues now.