Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir didn’t forget to thank curator Sujan Mukherjee before leaving Eden Gardens on Sunday afternoon and told him that he shouldn’t hold himself responsible for India’s humiliating loss in the opening Test against South Africa.

“Don’t take umbrage for India’s performance. You prepared a wicket as per our recommendations. The fault lies with our batters, who lacked the technical acumen needed to survive on such conditions. Don’t feel bad since you acted according to our wishes,” Mukherjee narrated Gambhir’s words during a chat with The Telegraph on Monday evening.

Neither team crossed 200 in their two innings, with Temba Bavuma scoring the only half-century of the match, as India failed to reach the 124-run target in the fourth innings.

Run-scoring and survival were fraught with risk on the third afternoon, but still a few of the batters, including Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rishabh Pant, were guilty of gifting their wickets away.

Was the surface a minefield since it crumbled from the second day itself?
Gambhir cleared the air at the news conference saying the pitch “wasn’t unplayable”.

“If you are willing to put your head down, definitely it’s a wicket where you can score,” Gambhir reasoned.

Poor shot selection, flawed judgement and the batters’ refusal to learn from mistakes contributed to their dismal show. A fact acknowledged by the curator too.

“I would still say the wicket was good. There was variable bounce and pace... The reason why pacers took 16 wickets. The turn for the spinners was not abrupt and was manageable. I would put it down to bad application from both the teams’ batters,” Mukherjee said.

The curator said he wasn’t surprised at Gambhir’s request and had warned the team management about the pitfalls of a spinning surface.

“I had told Gambhir that a neutral surface would have been ideal since the team has a strong pace attack comprising Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj. Even on a neutral pitch, we would stand a good chance, but they insisted on less watering and rolling,” Mukherjee said.

“The Eden wicket has a certain compactness to it which gives it a firm nature. I don’t think many balls kept low or there was any alarming turn... Show me one ball which pitched on the off and turned outside leg? Give me two days and I can still produce a perfect wicket where the batters and bowlers will get equal opportunities.”

The vicious nature of the wicket played on the batters’ mind, which led to most of the dismissals. Had they overcome the fear factor and showed the inclination to stay put, India could have easily reached the target.

“We have always said we want turning wickets where the ball turns a little on day one so that the toss doesn’t become an important factor,” Gambhir said.

How the head coach maintains such logic is surprising. They have now lost the toss in each of their last three home Tests where the wicket was tailor-made — versus New Zealand in Pune and Mumbai and now against South Africa — but still went on to lose the Test.

Gambhir also put it on the batters’ inexperience, though there were no rookies in the side. Only Dhruv Jurel (8), Axar Patel (15) and Washington Sundar (16) have played less than 20 Tests, while most of the batters have had the experience of playing on varying surfaces during their careers.

India’s batting collapse has also raised questions on whether Shubman Gill and Gambhir share identical views on the nature of the wicket. Gill’s participation was ruined by an injury on the second morning. The captain had gone on record, ahead of the Test series against the West Indies, to say that they had moved away from preparing “rank turners”. It showed as the home team had gone on to make more than 450 twice in the two Tests.

Given the outrage, will India opt for a turner in Guwahati? The pressure will be telling on the players since another home series loss could have wide-ranging implications.