It is merely in recent years that female athletes in the South Asian region have gained recognition as serious cricketers. For generations, they faced ridicule, disapproval, ostracism – even the threat of violence – to pursue their passion. Currently, India is hosting a World Cup with a prize fund of $13.8 million, where the home nation's athletes could emerge as beloved icons if they achieve their maiden championship win.
This would, therefore, be a travesty if this weekend's talk centered around their male counterparts. And yet, when India face Pakistan on Sunday, parallels are inevitable. Not because the host team are strong favorites to triumph, but because they are not expected to exchange greetings with their rivals. Handshakegate, as it's been dubbed, will have a another chapter.
If you missed the original drama, it occurred at the end 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 field to avoid the usual post-game post-match ritual. A couple of similar follow-ups transpired in the Super4 match and the final, climaxing in a long-delayed award ceremony where the new champions declined to receive the trophy 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 pictured, a different approach on Sunday. Women's sport is intended to offer a new blueprint for the industry and an alternative to toxic legacies. The sight of Harmanpreet Kaur's team members offering the hand of camaraderie to Fatima Sana and her team would have made a powerful statement in an ever more polarized world.
Such an act could have acknowledged the mutually adverse circumstances they have conquered and offered a meaningful gesture that politics are fleeting compared with the connection of female solidarity. Undoubtedly, it would have earned a spot alongside the additional good news story at this competition: the displaced Afghanistan cricketers welcomed as observers, being brought back into the sport four years after the Taliban forced them to flee their homes.
Rather, we've encountered the hard limits of the sporting sisterhood. This comes as no surprise. India's male cricketers are mega celebrities in their country, worshipped like deities, treated like royalty. They enjoy all the benefits and influence that comes with fame and wealth. If Yadav and his side can't balk the diktats of an strong-handed leader, what hope do the women have, whose elevated status is only recently attained?
Maybe it's more astonishing that we're continuing to discuss about a handshake. The Asia Cup furore prompted much analysis of that particular sporting ritual, not least because it is viewed as the ultimate marker of sportsmanship. But Yadav's refusal was much less important than what he said right after the first game.
Skipper Yadav deemed the winners' podium the "perfect occasion" to devote his team's win to the military personnel who had taken part in India's strikes on Pakistan in May, known as Operation Sindoor. "I hope they continue to inspire us all," Yadav told the post-game reporter, "so we can provide them further cause on the ground each time we get an opportunity to make them smile."
This reflects the current reality: a real-time discussion by a team captain publicly praising a military assault in which dozens died. Previously, Australian cricketer Usman Khawaja was unable to display a single peaceful symbol past the ICC, not even the dove logo – a literal sign of harmony – on his bat. Yadav was eventually fined 30% of his game earnings for the remarks. He was not the sole individual disciplined. Pakistan's Haris Rauf, who mimicked aircraft crashing and made "six-zero" gestures to the audience in the Super4 match – similarly alluding to the hostilities – was given the identical penalty.
This is not a matter of failing to honor your rivals – this is sport co-opted as nationalistic propaganda. It's pointless to be morally outraged by a missing greeting when that's simply a minor plot development in the story of two countries already employing cricket as a diplomatic tool and weapon of proxy war. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made that explicit with his social media post after the final ("Operation Sindoor on the games field. Outcome is the same – India wins!"). Naqvi, for his part, proclaims that sport and politics must remain separate, while double-stacking positions as a government minister and chair of the PCB, and directly mentioning the Indian leader about his country's "embarrassing losses" on the war front.
The takeaway from this situation is not about cricket, or the Indian side, or Pakistan, in separation. It serves as a caution that the notion of sports diplomacy is finished, at least for now. The very game that was used to build bridges between the countries 20 years ago is now being utilized to inflame tensions between them by individuals who know exactly what they're attempting, and huge fanbases who are eager participants.
Division is affecting every realm of society and as the most prominent of the international cultural influences, athletics is always susceptible: it's a form of entertainment that literally invites you to choose a team. Many who find India's actions towards Pakistan belligerent will still support a Ukrainian tennis player's entitlement 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 highlights. The behavior of the New York spectators was the "ideal reflection" of a golf-loving president who openly incites hatred 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 nodded through when athletes – like US captain Keegan Bradley – fail to acknowledge and sanction it.
A handshake is meant to represent that, at the conclusion of any contest, no matter how intense or bad-tempered, the participants are setting aside their simulated rivalry and acknowledging their common humanity. If the enmity is genuine – demanding that its players come out in vocal support of their national armed forces – then why are you bothering with the arena of sports at all? You might as well put on the military uniform now.
