Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting questioned Australia’s decision to retain Marnus Labuschagne. The batter has been picked in the 16-man squad for the tour of South Africa, which left Ponting surprised.

Labuschagne returned with scores of 1 and 31 in the opening Test match of the series against Bangladesh.

The right-hander was looking good in the second innings but could not convert his start into a big score. Labuschagne hasn’t been able to come up with consistent performances in the recent past and the pressure is certainly rising on him.

Labuschagne’s last Test century came back in July 2023 against England, which was 43 innings ago. Since then, he has averaged 24.69 with nine fifties.

Furthermore, the right-hander was dismissed after managing only four runs in the first innings of the second Test match against Bangladesh.

“Am I surprised? It’s hard to be surprised because they just keep picking him. In the back of my own mind I was like, ‘has the time come when they’re going to make that call yet, or is it not?’ They’ve decided not to, and the only thing I can think is they’re going to shuffle the batting order around to accommodate somehow because I can’t see how they can keep going the same direction they’ve gone,” said Ponting as quoted by CricBlog.

During the second Test match against Bangladesh, Ponting highlighted Labuschagne’s inability to score runs while playing on the back foot.

“I admire that they [the selectors] tried to get him and get him back to his best, but it’s been way too long now. I’m on record as saying I would have made that change at the start of this series because I think there was enough evidence for me to suggest that he was a long way from rediscovering his best,” Ponting said.

“He was unlucky today. There’s no doubt about that. But that tends to happen to you as well when you’re struggling and you’re trying to find some form and some rhythm. The worry that I had with him, I think there’s some technical deficiency there but he’s making the margin for error for the bowlers too great. With the length, he can’t score off the back foot. If you can’t score off the back foot in Test cricket then batting becomes a hard game. So I well and truly think it’s time to have a look at somebody else,” he added.

Australia Test squad for South Africa series: Pat Cummins (captain), Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Cooper Connolly, Cameron Green, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Matthew Kuhnemann, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Michael Neser, Matthew Renshaw, Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc and Beau Webster