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It is merely in recent years that female athletes in the subcontinent have been acknowledged as professional cricket players. For generations, they endured ridicule, disapproval, ostracism – including the risk of physical harm – to follow their love for the game. Now, India is staging a global tournament with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the host country's players could become beloved icons if they secure their first championship win.

It would, therefore, be a travesty if this weekend's talk focused on their male counterparts. However, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are inevitable. And not because the host team are highly favoured to win, but because they are unlikely to exchange greetings with their opposition. The handshake controversy, if we must call it that, will have a fourth instalment.

If you missed the original drama, it occurred at the end of the men's group match 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 usual friendly post-match ritual. A couple of same-y sequels transpired in the knockout round and the final, culminating in a protracted presentation ceremony where the new champions refused to receive the trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. The situation might have seemed comic 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. Female athletics is intended to offer a fresh model for the industry and an different path to toxic legacies. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members offering the hand of camaraderie to Fatima Sana and her squad would have made a strong message in an ever more polarized world.

Such an act could have recognized the mutually adverse circumstances they have overcome and offered a symbolic reminder that political issues are fleeting compared with the bond of women's unity. It would certainly have deserved a place alongside the additional good news story at this tournament: the exiled Afghanistan players invited as guests, being reintegrated into the sport four years after the Taliban drove them from their homes.

Rather, we've encountered the firm boundaries of the female athletic community. No one is shocked. India's men's players are mega celebrities in their country, worshipped like deities, treated like royalty. They enjoy all the privilege and power that accompanies fame and money. If Yadav and his side are unable to defy the directives of an authoritarian leader, what chance do the women have, whose elevated status is only newly won?

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 tradition, especially because it is considered the definitive symbol of sportsmanship. But Yadav's snub was much less important than what he stated immediately after the first game.

Skipper Yadav considered the winners' podium the "ideal moment" to dedicate his team's win to the military personnel who had participated in India's strikes on Pakistan in May, known as Operation Sindoor. "I hope they continue to inspire us all," Yadav told the post-game reporter, "and we give them further cause on the ground each time we get an opportunity to make them smile."

This is where we are: a real-time discussion by a sporting leader openly celebrating a armed attack in which many people lost their lives. Two years ago, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a solitary peaceful symbol approved by the ICC, not even the dove logo – a direct emblem of peace – on his bat. Yadav was subsequently fined 30% of his game earnings for the remarks. He wasn't the sole individual disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated plane crashes and made "six-zero" signals to the crowd in the later game – similarly alluding to the conflict – received the identical penalty.

This isn't a issue of failing to honor your rivals – this is athletics co-opted as nationalistic propaganda. It's pointless to be ethically angered by a missing greeting when that's merely a small detail in the narrative of two countries actively using cricket as a political lever 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, on his side, blares that sport and politics shouldn't mix, while double-stacking 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 episode is not about cricket, or the Indian side, or Pakistan, in isolation. It serves as a caution that the concept of ping pong diplomacy is finished, for the time being. The very game that was employed to build bridges between the nations 20 years ago is now being utilized to inflame tensions between them by people who are fully aware what they're attempting, and massive followings who are eager participants.

Division is infecting every aspect of society and as the greatest of the global soft powers, sport is always vulnerable: it's a form of entertainment that directly encourages you to choose a team. Many 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.

If you're still kidding yourself that the athletic field is a magical safe space that unites countries, review the golf tournament recap. The conduct of the New York spectators was the "ideal reflection" of a leader who enjoys the sport who publicly provokes animosity against his adversaries. Not only did we witness the erosion of the typical sporting principles of equity and mutual respect, but how quickly this might be accepted and tacitly approved when sportspeople themselves – like US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and penalize it.

A post-game greeting is supposed to represent that, at the conclusion of every competition, however intense or bad-tempered, the participants are putting off their pretend enmity and acknowledging their common humanity. Should the rivalry is genuine – demanding that its players emerge in vocal support of their respective militaries – then what is the purpose with the sporting field at all? You might as well put on the military uniform immediately.