The Eden surface was a minefield; it prematurely cracked, crumbled, and had variable hardness. This was a wicket which had no exact doctrine to embrace. It was where the old cliche, stick to the strengths, rings the truest. Attackers had to attack; stonewallers had to stonewall. In-betweenism was bound to fail. The vile nature of the pitch would have invariably played in batsmen’s mind, as Indians stumbled into in-betweenism and failed. On an evil wicket, a batsman only sees the devils. A benign ball grows teeth, a boundary ball develops fangs, a routine good length ball sprouts wings, and the strip becomes a Loch Ness Monster. Batsmen, with jaundiced eyes, start seeing everything in yellow. It distorts the judgment, muddies perceptions, and makes batting look a more treacherous exercise than it actually is. But Gautam Gambhir’s observation that the strip was not unplayable was not entirely bereft of logic. “It might not be a wicket which is going to [allow you to] be very, very flamboyant, where you can play those big shots. But if …