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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 ridicule, censure, exclusion – even the risk of physical harm – to pursue their love for the game. Currently, India is hosting a World Cup with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the host country's players could emerge as national treasures if they achieve their first championship win.

It would, then, be a great injustice if this weekend's talk focused on their male counterparts. However, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are inevitable. Not because the home side are strong favorites to win, but because they are unlikely to shake hands with their rivals. Handshakegate, as it's been dubbed, will have a another chapter.

In case you weren't aware of 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 pitch to avoid the usual friendly post-match ritual. A couple of same-y follow-ups occurred in the Super4 match and the final, climaxing in a protracted award ceremony where the new champions refused to receive the trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's chair, Mohsin Naqvi. The situation might have seemed humorous if it hadn't been so tragic.

Those following the female cricket World Cup might well have anticipated, and even pictured, a alternative conduct on Sunday. Women's sport is supposed to provide a fresh model for the sports world and an alternative to toxic legacies. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's players extending the hand of camaraderie to Fatima Sana and her team would have made a strong message in an ever more polarized world.

Such an act could have acknowledged the shared challenging circumstances they have conquered and provided a symbolic reminder that political issues are fleeting compared with the bond of women's unity. It would certainly have earned a place alongside the additional positive narrative at this tournament: the exiled Afghanistan cricketers welcomed as observers, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban drove them from their homes.

Rather, we've encountered the firm boundaries of the sporting sisterhood. This comes as no surprise. India's men's players are huge stars in their homeland, idolized like gods, treated like nobility. They possess all the benefits and influence that comes with stardom and money. If Yadav and his team can't balk the directives of an authoritarian leader, what hope do the women have, whose elevated status is only newly won?

Maybe it's even more surprising that we're still talking about a handshake. The Asia Cup uproar prompted much deconstruction of that particular sporting tradition, not least because it is considered the ultimate marker of sportsmanship. But Yadav's refusal was far less significant than what he stated right after the first game.

Skipper Yadav deemed the victory stand the "ideal moment" to devote 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 continue to inspire us all," Yadav informed the post-match interviewer, "and we give them more reasons on the ground whenever we get an opportunity to make them smile."

This is where we are: a real-time discussion by a sporting leader openly celebrating a military assault in which dozens died. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a single humanitarian message approved by the ICC, not even the dove logo – a direct emblem of harmony – on his equipment. Yadav was subsequently fined 30% of his game earnings for the comments. He was not the sole individual disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked aircraft crashing and made "6-0" signals to the crowd in the later game – similarly alluding to the hostilities – was given the same punishment.

This isn't a matter of not respecting your opponents – this is athletics co-opted as patriotic messaging. There's no use to be ethically angered by a absent handshake when that's simply a minor plot development in the story of two countries already employing cricket as a diplomatic tool and weapon of indirect conflict. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stated this with his post-final tweet ("Operation Sindoor on the cricket pitch. The result remains unchanged – India wins!"). Naqvi, for his part, blares that sport and politics shouldn't mix, while holding dual positions as a state official and chair of the PCB, and publicly tagging the Indian prime minister about his country's "embarrassing losses" on the battlefield.

The lesson from this situation shouldn't be about cricket, or the Indian side, or the Pakistani team, in separation. It serves as a caution that the notion of ping pong diplomacy is finished, at least for now. The very game that was employed to foster connections between the countries 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 society and as the greatest of the international cultural influences, sport is always susceptible: it's a type of entertainment that literally invites you to choose a team. Plenty who find India's gesture towards Pakistan belligerent will nonetheless champion a Ukrainian tennis player's entitlement to decline meeting a Russian competitor on the court.

If you're still kidding yourself that the sporting arena is a magical safe space that brings nations together, go back and watch the Ryder Cup highlights. The conduct of the New York spectators was the "perfect tribute" of a leader who enjoys the sport who openly incites animosity against his adversaries. Not only did we witness the decline of the typical sporting values of equity and mutual respect, but how quickly this might be accepted and tacitly approved when sportspeople themselves – such as US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and sanction it.

A handshake is meant to signify that, at the conclusion of every competition, however intense or bad-tempered, the competitors are setting aside their simulated rivalry and acknowledging their common humanity. If the enmity isn't pretend – demanding that its athletes emerge in vocal support of their national armed forces – then why are you bothering with the sporting field at all? It would be equivalent to don the fatigues immediately.