Sporting Female Camaraderie Struggles to Overcome Patriotic Diktats as India Take On Pakistan

It's only in recent years that female athletes in the subcontinent have gained recognition as serious cricketers. For generations, they endured ridicule, disapproval, ostracism – including the threat of violence – to pursue their love for the game. Currently, India is hosting a World Cup with a prize fund of $13.8 million, where the host country's players could become national treasures if they secure their maiden championship win.

It would, then, be a travesty if the upcoming discussion focused on their men's teams. However, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are unavoidable. Not because the host team are highly favoured to triumph, but because they are not expected to exchange greetings with their opposition. The handshake controversy, if we must call it that, will have a fourth instalment.

In case you weren't aware of the initial incident, it took place at the end 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 disappeared the pitch to evade the customary post-game handshake tradition. A couple of similar follow-ups transpired in the knockout round and the final, culminating in a protracted presentation ceremony where the title winners declined to accept the trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's chair, Mohsin Naqvi. The situation might have seemed comic if it hadn't been so distressing.

Those following the female cricket World Cup might well have hoped for, and even imagined, a alternative conduct on Sunday. Female athletics is intended to offer a new blueprint for the sports world and an different path to toxic traditions. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's players extending the fingers of friendship to Fatima Sana and her squad would have sent a powerful statement in an ever more polarized world.

It might have recognized the mutually adverse environment they have overcome and offered a meaningful gesture that political issues are fleeting compared with the bond of female solidarity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a spot alongside the other good news story at this tournament: the exiled Afghanistan players invited as observers, being brought back into the game four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their country.

Instead, we've collided with the firm boundaries of the female athletic community. No one is shocked. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their homeland, idolized like deities, regarded like nobility. They possess all the benefits and influence that accompanies fame and money. If Yadav and his team are unable to defy the diktats of an authoritarian prime minister, what hope do the women have, whose elevated status is only newly won?

Maybe it's even more surprising that we're continuing to discuss about a simple greeting. The Asia Cup furore led to much analysis of that particular sporting ritual, not least because it is viewed as the definitive symbol of sportsmanship. But Yadav's snub was much less important than what he stated immediately after the first game.

The India captain deemed 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. "I hope they will inspire us all," Yadav told the post-match interviewer, "so we can provide them more reasons in the field whenever we get an opportunity to make them smile."

This reflects the current reality: a live interview by a team captain openly celebrating a armed attack in which many people lost their lives. Two years ago, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a single humanitarian message approved by the ICC, including the dove logo – a direct emblem of peace – on his bat. Yadav was subsequently penalized 30% of his game earnings for the comments. He was not the sole individual sanctioned. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who imitated aircraft crashing and made "six-zero" signals to the crowd in the later game – also referencing the hostilities – was given the same punishment.

This isn't a matter of not respecting your opponents – this is sport appropriated as patriotic messaging. It's pointless to be ethically angered by a missing handshake when that's merely a minor plot development in the narrative of two nations actively using cricket as a political lever and weapon of indirect conflict. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stated this with his social media post after the final ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, blares that athletics and governance shouldn't mix, while holding dual positions as a state official and chair of the PCB, and directly mentioning 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 isolation. It's a warning that the concept of ping pong diplomacy is over, at least for now. The very game that was used to build bridges between the countries 20 years ago is now being utilized to heighten hostilities between them by individuals who are fully aware what they're attempting, and huge fanbases who are eager participants.

Division is affecting every aspect of society and as the greatest of the international cultural influences, athletics is always susceptible: it's a type of entertainment that directly invites you to pick a side. Many who find India's gesture towards Pakistan aggressive will still champion a Ukrainian tennis player's right 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 brings nations together, go back and watch the Ryder Cup recap. The behavior of the New York spectators was the "perfect tribute" of a golf-loving president who publicly provokes hatred against his opponents. Not only did we witness the erosion of the usual sporting values of fairness and shared courtesy, but how quickly this might be accepted and nodded through when sportspeople themselves – like US captain Keegan Bradley – fail to acknowledge and penalize it.

A post-game greeting is supposed to represent that, at the conclusion of any contest, however bitter or bad-tempered, the competitors are setting aside their pretend enmity and acknowledging their common humanity. If the enmity isn't pretend – if it requires its players emerge in vocal support of their national armed forces – then what is the purpose with the sporting field at all? It would be equivalent to put on the military uniform now.