To begin with, some jokes on the pause in Usman Tariq's action from a quick whip around the internet:

• Usman Tariq keeps needing to buffer for a second because his wifi is dodgy.

• The over-marketing of cricket has got so intense a bowler has built an ad-break into their action. (Say thank you, broadcasters.)

• If he stops any longer, pigeons may come and do their business on him.

• Your problem is you have the trial version. If you pay for Premium Usman Tariq he flows super smoothly in UltraHD 8K resolution.

Whatever the case, this paused Usman Tariq - who stands poised and still in his load-up, left knee raised, elbows cocked, fingers squeezing tightly on the ball - has this week become the pole upon which the India-Pakistan universe spins. Almost everyone has had their say: analysts, commentators, youtubers, comedians, social-media trolls, long-term broadcasters, writers. Because a Pakistan-India match must have the overspun attendant conversation, and because the cricketing facts of this rivalry's importance are so thin on the ground, the guy with the unusual action has put at its centre.

For starters, the pause in Tariq's action is consistent from delivery to delivery, which suggests it is a natural part of his approach to the crease as he himself has reported, rather than a ploy to distract, at which point it would be a problem. Some, such as R Ashwin have argued that pauses such as this should be a part of a bowler's armoury, as they increasingly come up against batters who flit liberally around the crease, switch stances, and in some cases switch grips. Such takes draw from a long-term bowler complaint in the T20 era: why do we treat batters like such babies? Do they also want a printed copy of the bowling plan?

Beyond the pause, however, is the kink in the elbow, which Tariq sports pretty prominently, owing - he says - to his unusually having "two corners" in his elbow joint. Perhaps it is fitting that his action comes under its most severe international spotlight in Sri Lanka. If any place in the world understands that elbows can sometimes be permanently bent, this is the one, the kink in Muthiah Muralidaran's having been in medical evidence for almost three decades now.

Like Murali, Tariq has cleared his action in ICC-approved biomechanics labs more than once now, having been sent there from the Pakistan Super League, where umpires' suspicions twice arose. Having been honed over decades, lab-testing procedure is sophisticated and standardised across locations, and leaves little leeway to obtain unfairly favourable results.

The testing goes like this:

• Bowlers are required to send down three legitimate overs, wearing biomechanic sensors on shoulder, arm, and torso, while super high-tech (Vicon) motion capture cameras operate from several angles.

• Within those three overs, bowlers must deliver each of the variations they use in competitive matches.

• Footage of the bowler's in-game action is overlaid upon their bowling footage at the lab, to ensure players cannot bowl differently in the test than they do in a match.

• Bowling intensity is also a fundamental consideration. Bowling speeds, revolutions, and trajectory are measured, and must replicate their in-match bowling.

• Additionally, the ICC appoints a senior bowling coach (often from the local state association) to independently verify that the bowler being tested is operating as they would in the heat of competition.

Many have struggled with the testing procedure's stringency. One Sri Lanka bowler, for example, had had to bowl seven or eight overs during one of his tests until the technicians were satisfied that 18 of his deliveries were sufficiently matched to his in-game bowling. (He was banned as a result of that test.)

In one sense, the idea that a bowler such as Tariq - whose variations have all emerged from these procedures unscathed - should be under any cloud, is not merely unfair, it is verging on ludicrous. Tariq has proved his action's legality more than most bowlers ever have to. In fact the most unscientific part of the ICC procedure is the one that saw him raise suspicion at all. The ICC's official line is that it is only at 15 degrees elbow extension that chucking becomes visible to the naked eye, and as such leave the reporting of suspicious actions to the umpires. Bowlers with unusual actions, and with kinked elbows - like Tariq and Murali - are more likely to be pulled up, where bowlers with more conventional actions evoke less suspicion. There is no established negative correlation between unconventionality and legality however; physics is frequently at odds with perception.

As with Murali, there will also be a significant segment of haters who continue to hate for no rational or observable reason other than just their sweet, sweet love of hating. There will always be some barely-plausible theory to pounce on. Even towards the end of a storied career, Murali was accused, for example, of having his action break down into chucking when he was tired at the end of one of his long spells. It doesn't feel like the spotlight on Tariq's elbow is about to get any less severe, whatever happens on Sunday.

His captain Salman Agha has clocked all this, and feels his spinner won't let the microscope rattle him. "The guy has been cleared twice and he has done whatever ICC said and whatever he is required to do to bowl in international cricket," Agha said ahead of the match against India. "I don't know why people are saying so many things about him, but the one thing I can assure you is that he doesn't care about that, because he's very used to this stuff. It's been with him since he started international career, so he doesn't care about it."

In less fraught times, perhaps the focus will have been on how inspiring the Usman Tariq story is. Here is a player who was chopping vegetables in a Dubai hotel when he began to make serious headway in the cricket world. Relatively late in life, Tariq switched from seam bowling to spin, and has since essentially hacked his way into an international cricket career, a process that has to have required substantial tenacity, creativity, and an ultra-keen nose for opportunity. That there are barely any cricketers like him has little to do with his elbow. That there is a brooding intelligence there is obvious if you'd ever bothered to hear what he has to say about his journey.

Tariq has perhaps summed it up best himself. "Every single person who is commenting on this should study cricket first, and then they should go for the allegation stuff," he told the interviewer Brian Murgatroyd. Then he followed up with this: "illiteracy can kill knowledge".