The curious case of SA’s demise in India, scene of a new encounter

● A long flight to Mumbai. An ooze through Maximum City’s permanent rush-hour traffic. The never straightforward business of checking into a hotel. And now this: a dull thud of realisation that the key to the padlock on the suitcase has been lost. “Hello? Is that the front desk?”

“Sir! Yes Sir!”

“Umm …”

Not two minutes after the end of that call there’s a polite knock at the door. A man nods a greeting, enters, and strides smartly towards the suitcase and its slammed shut padlock.

He positions the padlock just so with one hand, and with the other produces from behind his back an angle grinder.

Clearly, he has done this before.

The rasping whine of metal biting into metal rips through the air, which is suddenly, dangerously, showered with sparks.

“Clink.”

The man flicks a switch to restore the silence and staunch the sparks. He nods a goodbye and exits the room as neatly as he entered it, leaving doubts about the effectiveness of the smoke detectors.

And, of course, the cleanly severed shackle of a padlock on a freshly unlocked suitcase.

SA are between the rock of a worrying campaign and the hard place of what to do

From the man’s greeting to his goodbye took maybe seven seconds.

Welcome, pilgrim, to India.

However many times you’ve visited, wherever else you’ve been and whatever else you’ve done, nothing can prepare you for the shape-shifting monster that is a tour of the home of so much that is amazing about the world; cricket included.

The curious incident of the padlock in the hotel room happened on SA’s men’s team’s previous tour there, in 2015.

And there they are again today, in Dharamshala, playing the first match of what will, in five-and-a-half weeks’ time, add up to three T20s and as many Tests.

A lot happens to teams on India tours. Four years ago SA arrived as the No 1-ranked Test side and, despite having won both white-ball series, went home a discombobulated mess who were promptly beaten by England. And England are again on their way in the coming summer.

But this time the South Africans are under no illusions about the state of their game. They are between the rock of a worrying World Cup campaign and the hard place of what to do about it.

India is the worst place for a team like SA to have to answer those questions, but also the best. They are so far out of their comfort zone that nothing is normal. Good thing, then, that they need a new normal.

Now they need the key to unlock what that is.