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It's only in recent years that women in the subcontinent have been acknowledged as serious cricketers. Over many years, they faced scorn, disapproval, ostracism – even the risk of physical harm – to pursue their love for the game. Currently, India is staging a global tournament with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the home nation'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 centered around their men's teams. However, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are unavoidable. And not because the host team are highly favoured to triumph, but because they are unlikely to exchange greetings with their rivals. Handshakegate, as it's been dubbed, will have a fourth instalment.

If you missed the original drama, it occurred at the conclusion 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 squad disappeared the pitch to avoid the usual friendly handshake tradition. Two similar sequels occurred in the knockout round and the championship game, climaxing in a protracted award ceremony where the new champions declined to accept the trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been humorous if it weren't so distressing.

Observers of the women's World Cup might well have hoped for, and even imagined, a alternative conduct on Sunday. Women's sport is intended to offer a new blueprint for the industry and an alternative to toxic traditions. The image of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members extending the hand of camaraderie to Fatima Sana and her team would have made a powerful statement in an increasingly divided world.

It might have recognized the mutually adverse environment they have overcome and offered a symbolic reminder that politics are temporary compared with the connection of women's unity. It would certainly have earned a place alongside the other positive narrative at this competition: the exiled Afghanistan cricketers invited as guests, being brought back into the game four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their homes.

Rather, we've collided with the hard limits of the female athletic community. This comes as no surprise. India's men's players are mega celebrities in their country, idolized like deities, treated like nobility. They possess all the privilege and power that comes with fame and wealth. If Yadav and his side are unable to defy the diktats of an strong-handed leader, what chance do the female players have, whose improved position is only newly won?

Perhaps it's more astonishing that we're still talking about a simple greeting. The Asia Cup furore led to much analysis of that particular sporting tradition, not least 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.

The India captain considered the victory stand the "perfect occasion" to dedicate his team's win to the military personnel who had participated in India's attacks 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 more reasons on the ground whenever we get an opportunity to make them smile."

This is where we are: a live interview by a sporting leader publicly praising a military assault in which many people lost their lives. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja couldn't get a solitary peaceful symbol past the ICC, not even the peace dove – a direct sign of harmony – on his equipment. Yadav was subsequently fined 30% of his match fee for the comments. He was not the only one disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated plane crashes and made "6-0" gestures to the audience in the Super4 match – similarly alluding to the conflict – received the identical penalty.

This isn't a matter of not respecting your rivals – this is sport appropriated as nationalistic propaganda. There's no use to be morally outraged by a absent greeting when that's simply a minor plot development in the narrative of two countries already employing cricket as a political lever and weapon of proxy war. 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 athletics and governance shouldn't mix, while holding dual positions as a state official and head of the PCB, and directly mentioning the Indian prime minister about his country's "humiliating defeats" on the war front.

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 sports diplomacy is over, at least for now. The same sport that was used to build bridges between the countries 20 years ago is now being used to inflame tensions between them by people who know exactly what they're attempting, and massive followings who are active supporters.

Division is affecting every aspect of public life and as the greatest of the global soft powers, athletics is always vulnerable: it's a form of entertainment that literally invites you to choose a team. Plenty who consider India's actions towards Pakistan aggressive will nonetheless champion a Ukrainian tennis player's right to decline meeting a Russian competitor across the net.

Should anyone still believe that the sporting arena is a magical safe space that brings nations together, go back and watch the Ryder Cup recap. The conduct of the Bethpage 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 principles of equity and mutual respect, but the speed at which 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 represent that, at the conclusion of any contest, however intense or heated, the competitors are putting off their pretend enmity and acknowledging their shared human bond. If the enmity isn't pretend – demanding that its players come out in vocal support of their national armed forces – then what is the purpose with the arena of sports at all? You might as well don the fatigues now.