Experimentation is a word Rahul Dravid would love to hate because of the manner in which he had to deal with it in the last few months. On Tuesday, the head coach decided to put the record straight at the conclusion of the conditioning camp in Alur.

"To be very honest with you, this word experimentation gets thrown around a lot without actually sometimes being thought through," Dravid said. "It's not that we are trying to sometimes experiment for the sake of experimenting. Sometimes there are specific reasons why you have to do certain things.

"Just to give you an example, the No. 4 and 5 spots seem to get discussed and talked about a lot. It gives the impression that we don't have clarity on who was going to be there, but to be very honest with you, I could have told you 18 or 19 months ago the top two-three candidates we were looking at for the No. 4, 5 slots.

"It was always going to be Shreyas (Iyer), KL (Rahul) and Rishabh (Pant) for those spots, right? If you look back on some of the teams that we picked from 18 months ago, there was no doubt in our minds. Obviously, it's unfortunate that all three of them ended up with injuries in the space of two months...

"And not small injuries, all three of them had serious injuries. All three of them had to go under the knife... And when that happens, you have to react to that. You put other people in those positions and see who can do it, just in case, come a World Cup, or come a big event, we are ready. So for us, at this point, it's just about giving game time to other people and ensuring they get enough opportunities."