Athletic Female Camaraderie Struggles to Surmount Nationalistic Mandates as Indian Team Face Pakistan

It is merely in the past few seasons that female athletes in the subcontinent have gained recognition as serious cricketers. For generations, they faced scorn, disapproval, ostracism – including the risk of physical harm – to follow their love for the game. Currently, India is staging a global tournament with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the host country's players could emerge as national treasures if they achieve their maiden tournament victory.

This would, then, be a travesty if this weekend's discussion centered around their male counterparts. However, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are unavoidable. Not because the host team are strong favorites to triumph, but because they are unlikely to shake hands with their rivals. Handshakegate, as it's been dubbed, will have a another chapter.

If you missed the initial incident, it occurred 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 evade the usual friendly post-match ritual. Two similar sequels occurred in the Super4 match and the championship game, climaxing in a long-delayed presentation ceremony where the new champions refused to accept the trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been comic if it hadn't been so tragic.

Observers of the female cricket World Cup might well have hoped for, and even pictured, a different approach on Sunday. Women's sport is supposed to provide a new blueprint for the sports world and an different path to toxic legacies. The image 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 increasingly divided world.

Such an act could have acknowledged the shared challenging circumstances they have overcome and offered a symbolic reminder that political issues are fleeting compared with the bond of women's unity. Undoubtedly, it would have deserved a spot alongside the additional good news story at this tournament: the displaced Afghanistan cricketers invited as guests, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their homes.

Instead, we've collided with the hard limits of the female athletic community. No one is shocked. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their country, worshipped like deities, regarded like nobility. They possess all the privilege and influence that accompanies fame and money. If Yadav and his team are unable to defy the diktats of an authoritarian leader, what chance do the female players have, whose improved position is only newly won?

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 ritual, 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 "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 will motivate us all," Yadav told the post-game reporter, "and we give them more reasons in the field each time we have the chance to bring them joy."

This is where we are: a real-time discussion by a team captain publicly praising a armed attack in which dozens 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 sign of peace – on his equipment. Yadav was eventually penalized 30% of his game earnings for the remarks. He wasn't the sole individual disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked aircraft crashing and made "6-0" signals to the audience in the Super4 match – similarly alluding to the conflict – received the identical penalty.

This is not a matter of failing to honor your opponents – this is athletics appropriated as nationalistic propaganda. There's no use to be morally outraged by a missing greeting when that's simply a minor plot development in the story 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 post-final tweet ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same – India wins!"). Naqvi, for his part, proclaims that sport and politics shouldn't mix, while double-stacking roles as a state official and chair of the PCB, and publicly tagging the Indian leader about his country's "embarrassing losses" on the battlefield.

The lesson from this situation is not about the sport, or India, or the Pakistani team, in separation. It's a warning that the notion of ping pong diplomacy is finished, at least for now. The very game that was employed to foster connections between the countries 20 years ago is now being utilized to inflame tensions between them by individuals who are fully aware what they're doing, and massive followings who are eager participants.

Polarisation is infecting every aspect of public life and as the greatest of the international cultural influences, athletics is constantly susceptible: it's a form of leisure 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 opponent across the net.

Should anyone still believe that the sporting arena is a protected environment that unites countries, review the Ryder Cup highlights. The behavior of the Bethpage spectators was the "ideal reflection" of a leader who enjoys the sport who openly incites animosity against his adversaries. Not only did we witness the erosion of the typical sporting principles of equity and shared courtesy, but how quickly this might be accepted and nodded through when athletes – like US captain Keegan Bradley – fail to acknowledge and sanction it.

A post-game greeting is supposed to signify that, at the conclusion of any contest, no matter how intense or heated, the participants are putting off their pretend enmity and recognizing their common humanity. Should the rivalry is genuine – if it requires its athletes come out in outspoken endorsement of their national armed forces – then what is the purpose with the sporting field at all? It would be equivalent to put on the fatigues immediately.