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It is merely in the past few seasons that women in the subcontinent have gained recognition as serious cricketers. For generations, they faced scorn, disapproval, ostracism – including the threat of physical harm – to follow their passion. Now, India is staging a World Cup with a prize fund of $13.8 million, where the home nation's athletes could emerge as national treasures if they secure their first tournament victory.

This would, therefore, be a great injustice if the upcoming discussion centered around their men's teams. And yet, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are inevitable. And not because the host team are highly favoured to triumph, but because they are not expected to exchange greetings with their rivals. Handshakegate, if we must call it that, will have a fourth instalment.

If you missed the original drama, it took place at the conclusion of the men's group match between India and Pakistan at the continental championship last month when the India skipper, Suryakumar Yadav, and his team hurried off the pitch to avoid the usual friendly handshake tradition. Two similar follow-ups occurred in the Super4 match and the championship game, climaxing in a long-delayed presentation ceremony where the new champions declined 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.

Observers of the women's World Cup might well have anticipated, and even imagined, 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 offering the hand of camaraderie to Fatima Sana and her team would have sent a powerful statement in an ever more polarized world.

It might have recognized the mutually adverse environment they have conquered and offered a symbolic reminder that political issues are temporary compared with the connection of female solidarity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a place alongside the additional positive narrative at this tournament: the exiled Afghanistan players welcomed as guests, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban drove them from their homes.

Rather, we've collided with the firm boundaries of the female athletic community. This comes as no surprise. India's men's players are mega celebrities in their country, worshipped like deities, regarded like nobility. They enjoy all the privilege and influence that accompanies fame and wealth. If Yadav and his team can't balk the diktats of an strong-handed leader, what chance do the women have, whose elevated status is only recently attained?

Maybe it's even more surprising that we're continuing to discuss about a handshake. The Asia Cup furore prompted much analysis of that particular sporting tradition, especially because it is considered the ultimate marker of sportsmanship. But Yadav's snub was much less important than what he stated right after the first game.

Skipper Yadav considered the victory stand the "ideal moment" to dedicate his team's victory to the military personnel who had participated in India's attacks on Pakistan in May, referred to as Operation Sindoor. "My wish is they will motivate us all," Yadav informed the post-match interviewer, "so we can provide them more reasons on the ground each time we have the chance to bring them joy."

This is where we are: a live interview by a sporting leader openly celebrating a armed attack in which dozens died. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a single humanitarian message approved by the ICC, including the peace dove – a literal sign of peace – on his equipment. Yadav was subsequently penalized 30% of his match fee for the comments. He was not the only one sanctioned. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated plane crashes and made "six-zero" signals to the crowd in the later game – also referencing the hostilities – was given the identical penalty.

This is not a matter of failing to honor your opponents – this is athletics co-opted as nationalistic propaganda. It's pointless to be morally outraged by a missing handshake when that's simply a minor plot development in the story of two nations already employing cricket as a diplomatic tool and weapon of proxy war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made that explicit with his social media post after the final ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same – India wins!"). Naqvi, for his part, blares that sport and politics must remain separate, while holding dual roles 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 situation shouldn't be about the sport, or India, or Pakistan, in separation. It's a warning that the concept of sports 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 used to heighten hostilities between them by individuals who know exactly what they're attempting, and huge fanbases who are active supporters.

Division is affecting every realm of society and as the most prominent of the international cultural influences, sport is constantly vulnerable: it's a type of leisure that literally invites you to choose a team. Plenty who find India's actions towards Pakistan belligerent will still support a Ukrainian tennis player's entitlement to refuse to greet a Russian competitor on the court.

If you're still kidding yourself that the athletic field is a protected environment that unites countries, go back and watch the Ryder Cup highlights. The behavior of the New York crowds was the "ideal reflection" of a golf-loving president who publicly provokes animosity against his adversaries. Not only did we witness the decline of the typical sporting values of fairness and shared courtesy, but how quickly this might be normalized and tacitly approved when sportspeople themselves – such as US captain Keegan Bradley – refuse to recognise and penalize it.

A post-game greeting is supposed to signify that, at the end of every competition, however intense or heated, the competitors are setting aside their pretend enmity and acknowledging their common humanity. If the enmity isn't pretend – if it requires its athletes come out in vocal support of their respective militaries – then what is the purpose with the sporting field at all? It would be equivalent to don the fatigues now.