Something's spinning off its axis with Pakistan

You know you're in the opposition's heads when their star leg spinner bowls off-breaks for the better part of a training session. Shadab Khan did that at Chepauk on Wednesday, sending down offie after offie after offie after he had a conversation with Mickey Arthur. To what end?

There are four left-handed batters in South Africa's squad. Kagiso Rabada, who has batted twice in five matches during the tournament, and Andile Phehlukwayo, who has yet to play a game, are among them. The other two are Quinton de Kock and David Miller. Finding a way to nullify them - particularly de Kock - in Friday's World Cup match between the teams in Chennai is the answer to the question above.

Miller has scored 138 runs in five innings, and has been at the crease in the 30s when South Africa have clinched two of their four victories. In their only loss, against the Netherlands in Dharamsala on October 17, his 43 was South Africa's top score and, along with Keshav Maharaj's 40, the only reason more ignominy wasn't inflicted.

De Kock has played like someone unleashed, perhaps because of the freedom he anticipates once he retires from ODIs after the World Cup. Whatever the reason, each of the three centuries he has scored has shimmered with visceral energy and enjoyment.

He will take some stopping. Not that it hasn't been done: he was caught behind for 20 and four off the Dutch's Colin Ackermann and England's Reece Topley. That's a 50-50 argument in favour of deploying off-spin as an effective way to nullify the threat de Kock poses. Neither does the theory hold in the longer view - seven bowlers have dismissed de Kock at least three times in his 150 ODI innings. Only one of them, Ravichandran Ashwin, is an off-spinner.

Pakistan have an off-spinning allrounder in Agha Salman, but they have overlooked him for selection for all five of their matches. Frontline batters Babar Azam, Abdullah Shafique and Iftikhar Ahmed have dabbled with right-arm finger spin, but only Iftikhar has done so at this level in the format.

Even so, Shadab's curious change of style in the nets suggests the Pakistanis are taking this off-spin hypothesis earnestly. Or were they? "No, no, no; it was just an experiment," Shadab said with a smile on Thursday. "I was just bowling the warm-up balls. That's it. It's nothing serious." If that's true, Shadab has the longest warm-up routine in cricket.

Maybe making cricket's least threatening mode of bowling your weapon of choice is the kind of craziness that grows legs when players are hemmed in mercilessly, and especially when things are not going well on the field. Having beaten the Netherlands and Sri Lanka, Pakistan lost to India, Australia and Afghanistan.

But how are the Pakistanis supposed to perform at their best when they are confined to their hotel rooms at all times when they are not training or playing, or taking their meals in the forced seclusion of their own dining room?

These are measures we last saw during the bubble life of the pandemic, which had damaging effects on players' mental health. The difference is those restrictions applied to all involved, not just one of the squads in a series or tournament. Similarly, the stands were empty of all teams' fans during Covid, not only Pakistan's.

The wider realities of Pakistanis visiting India dictate that this is what they should have to put up with: security must come first, and we know that this country has been the victim of vicious terror attacks and has an at best fractious relationship with Pakistan. But there can be no denying that it is unfair on Pakistan's players to be treated so differently to others. And that it detracts from what should be the equality of the contest.

The South Africans do not have to deal with any such discrimination, a fact acknowledged by Temba Bavuma on Thursday: "I think with everything that is happening around their team, and the things that are not happening well for them, that humbles us as a team and it really gets to pull ourselves back and make sure that we still focus on playing good cricket."

So relaxed are Bavuma's side going into Friday's game that De Kock and Miller were not at an optional training session on Thursday. Neither was Heinrich Klaasen, whose strike rate of 150.78 is the tournament's highest. Nor Aiden Markram, who held the record for scoring the fastest World Cup century for 18 days - he was usurped by Glenn Maxwell on Wednesday.

That's the thing about this South Africa team: it's not all about one player. And another thing: their non-off-spinners do not bowl off-spin.