🔗 Share this article

It is merely in recent years that women in the South Asian region have gained recognition as serious cricketers. For generations, they faced scorn, disapproval, ostracism – including the risk of violence – to follow their passion. Currently, India is staging a global tournament with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the host country's players could become national treasures if they achieve their first championship win.

This would, therefore, be a great injustice if the upcoming talk focused on their men's teams. And yet, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are unavoidable. Not because the host team are highly favoured to win, but because they are not expected to shake hands with their opposition. Handshakegate, as it's been dubbed, will have a fourth instalment.

In case you weren't aware of the original drama, it took place 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 squad hurried off the pitch to avoid the usual friendly post-match ritual. A couple of similar follow-ups transpired in the knockout round and the championship game, climaxing in a long-delayed award ceremony where the title winners declined to accept the cup from the Pakistan Cricket Board's chair, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been humorous if it hadn't been so tragic.

Observers of the women's World Cup might well have hoped for, and even imagined, a alternative conduct on Sunday. Female athletics is intended to provide a fresh model for the sports world and an different path to negative legacies. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's players extending the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her team would have made a powerful statement in an increasingly divided world.

Such an act could have acknowledged the shared challenging environment they have conquered and provided a meaningful gesture that politics are temporary compared with the bond of women's unity. It would certainly have deserved a place alongside the additional positive narrative at this tournament: the exiled Afghanistan players welcomed as observers, being reintegrated into the sport four years after the Taliban drove them from their country.

Rather, we've collided with the hard limits of the sporting sisterhood. No one is shocked. India's men's players are huge stars in their country, worshipped like deities, treated like nobility. They possess all the privilege and power that accompanies stardom and money. If Yadav and his team can't balk the diktats of an authoritarian prime minister, what hope do the women have, whose elevated status is only recently attained?

Maybe it's even more surprising that we're still talking about a handshake. The Asia Cup furore led to much analysis of that particular sporting ritual, not least because it is considered the definitive symbol of sportsmanship. But Yadav's snub was much less important than what he said immediately after the initial match.

The India captain considered the victory stand the "ideal moment" to dedicate his team's win to the armed forces who had taken part in India's attacks on Pakistan in May, referred to as Operation Sindoor. "My wish is they will inspire us all," Yadav informed the post-match interviewer, "and we give 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 team captain publicly praising a military assault in which dozens died. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja couldn't get a solitary humanitarian message approved by the ICC, not even the dove logo – a literal sign of peace – on his equipment. Yadav was subsequently penalized 30% of his match fee for the remarks. He was not the sole individual disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked plane crashes and made "6-0" signals to the audience in the Super4 match – also referencing the conflict – was given the same punishment.

This isn't a matter of failing to honor your opponents – this is sport appropriated as patriotic messaging. It's pointless to be morally outraged by a absent greeting when that's merely a small detail in the story of two countries already employing cricket as a diplomatic tool and weapon of proxy war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stated this with his social media post after the final ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. The result remains unchanged – India wins!"). Naqvi, for his part, proclaims that sport and politics shouldn't mix, while double-stacking roles as a government minister and chair of the PCB, and directly mentioning the Indian leader about his country's "humiliating defeats" on the war front.

The lesson from this episode is not about the sport, or India, or Pakistan, in separation. It's a warning that the notion of ping pong diplomacy is finished, at least for now. The same sport that was employed to foster connections between the countries 20 years ago is now being utilized to heighten hostilities between them by people who are fully aware what they're doing, and huge fanbases who are eager participants.

Division is affecting every realm of public life and as the most prominent of the global soft powers, athletics is constantly vulnerable: it's a form of entertainment that directly invites you to pick a side. Plenty who consider India's gesture towards Pakistan aggressive will still champion 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 protected environment that brings nations together, review the golf tournament recap. The behavior of the Bethpage crowds was the "ideal reflection" of a golf-loving president who publicly provokes animosity against his adversaries. We observed not just the erosion of the usual sporting principles of fairness and mutual respect, but the speed at which this might be accepted and tacitly approved when sportspeople themselves – such as US captain Keegan Bradley – fail to acknowledge and penalize it.

A post-game greeting is meant to represent that, at the conclusion of any contest, no matter how intense or heated, the competitors are putting off their pretend enmity and acknowledging their common humanity. Should the rivalry isn't pretend – demanding that its athletes come out in outspoken endorsement of their national armed forces – then why are you bothering with the arena of sports at all? It would be equivalent to put on the fatigues now.