It is merely in the past few seasons that women in the South Asian region have gained recognition as professional cricket players. For generations, they endured ridicule, censure, ostracism – including the threat of physical harm – to follow their passion. Now, India is hosting a World Cup with a total purse of $13.8 million, where the home nation's athletes could emerge as beloved icons if they secure their first championship win.
This would, then, be a great injustice if this weekend's discussion centered around their men's teams. However, when India confront Pakistan on Sunday, comparison are inevitable. And not because the home side are highly favoured to triumph, but because they are not expected to shake hands with their rivals. The handshake controversy, as it's been dubbed, will have a fourth instalment.
If you missed the initial incident, it took place at the end of the male team's group stage game between India and Pakistan at the continental championship last month when the India captain, Suryakumar Yadav, and his squad hurried off the pitch to evade the customary post-game handshake tradition. A couple of same-y follow-ups transpired in the Super4 match and the final, culminating in a long-delayed presentation ceremony where the title winners declined to accept the trophy from the Pakistan Cricket Board's head, Mohsin Naqvi. It would have been humorous if it hadn't been so distressing.
Observers of the female cricket World Cup might well have anticipated, and even imagined, a different approach on Sunday. Female athletics is supposed to provide a new blueprint for the sports world and an alternative to toxic traditions. The image of Harmanpreet Kaur's players extending the hand of camaraderie to Fatima Sana and her squad would have made a powerful statement in an increasingly divided world.
It might have recognized the mutually adverse environment they have conquered and offered a meaningful gesture that political issues are fleeting compared with the bond of female solidarity. Undoubtedly, it would have earned a place alongside the other good news story at this tournament: the exiled Afghanistan players invited as guests, being brought back into the sport 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 men's players are mega celebrities in their homeland, worshipped like gods, treated like royalty. They possess all the benefits and influence that comes with fame and money. If Yadav and his team can't balk the directives of an strong-handed prime minister, what hope do the women have, whose improved position is only newly won?
Maybe it's even more surprising that we're still talking about a handshake. The Asia Cup uproar prompted much analysis of that particular sporting tradition, especially because it is considered the ultimate marker of sportsmanship. But Yadav's snub was far less significant than what he said immediately after the initial match.
Skipper Yadav deemed the winners' podium the "perfect occasion" to dedicate his team's win to the military personnel who had participated in India's strikes on Pakistan in May, known as Operation Sindoor. "I hope they will motivate us all," Yadav informed the post-game reporter, "and we give them further cause in the field each time we get an opportunity to bring them joy."
This reflects the current reality: a live interview by a team captain openly celebrating a armed attack in which many people died. 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 sign of harmony – on his bat. Yadav was eventually fined 30% of his game earnings for the comments. He wasn't the sole individual disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked aircraft crashing and made "6-0" gestures to the crowd in the later game – similarly alluding to the hostilities – received the same punishment.
This is not a matter of failing to honor your opponents – this is sport co-opted as patriotic messaging. There's no use to be ethically angered by a absent greeting when that's merely a minor plot development in the narrative of two nations already employing cricket as a political lever and instrument of proxy war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi clearly stated this with his post-final tweet ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. The result remains unchanged – India wins!"). Naqvi, on his side, proclaims that sport and politics must remain separate, 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 takeaway from this episode shouldn't be about cricket, or India, or Pakistan, in isolation. It serves as a caution that the notion of ping pong diplomacy is over, at least for now. The same sport that was employed to build bridges between the nations 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 active supporters.
Division is infecting every realm of public life and as the most prominent of the global soft powers, athletics is constantly susceptible: it's a form of entertainment that directly invites you to choose a team. Plenty who consider India's actions towards Pakistan aggressive will still champion a Ukrainian tennis player's entitlement to decline meeting a Russian competitor across the net.
If you're still kidding yourself that the athletic field is a magical safe space that unites countries, go back and watch the Ryder Cup recap. The conduct of the Bethpage crowds was the "perfect tribute" of a leader who enjoys the sport who publicly provokes animosity against his opponents. We observed not just the erosion of the usual sporting values of equity and shared courtesy, but the speed at which this might be normalized and tacitly approved when athletes – such as US captain Keegan Bradley – fail to acknowledge and penalize it.
A post-game greeting is meant to signify that, at the conclusion of every competition, however bitter or bad-tempered, the competitors are setting aside their pretend enmity and acknowledging their common humanity. If the enmity is genuine – if it requires its athletes emerge in vocal support of their national armed forces – then why are you bothering with the sporting field at all? You might as well put on the fatigues immediately.
