Australian cricket great Ricky Ponting has said the time is up for Marnus Labuschagne is the Test team after another underwhelming performance.
Battling Labuschagne made four before he missed a delivery on leg stump that hit his thigh pad and rebounded on to the stumps. It followed scores of one and 31 in the first Test.
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Labuschagne’s spot in the team was already under pressure heading into this series and that has only increased after making a total of 36 across three innings.
Ponting acknowledged there is no one banging the door down to command a spot, but still believed it’s time to bring in some fresh faces.
“There’s no one sort of belting the door down number-wise in Sheffield Shield cricket. But everything you hear coming back from the Shield players is how much more difficult it’s become to bat in Shield cricket with the way that the wickets are,” he said on Channel 7.
“Well look with this Aussie team and the selectors I admire what they’re trying to do with Marnus. I admire that they tried to get him and get him back to his best but it’s been way too long now.
“And 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.
“And he’ll look back at today, he was unlucky, 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.”
Ponting highlighted Labuschagne’s inability to hurt bowlers off the back foot as the veteran’s biggest issue.
“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,” he continued.
“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.
“That’s the great difference between when he was at his best and we highlighted some graphics earlier, three or four years ago where he’s averaging 65-68 for a test year. That was when he was scoring off front foot and back foot.
“I think the bowlers now know that they can run in a bowl anywhere from almost 10 metres to about four metres on off stump and out as wide as they want and he can’t hurt them.”
Ponting said he’s had enough chances and the time is right for a change.
“So I well and truly think it’s time to have a look at somebody else,” he said.
“Don’t get me wrong I’m not one for making panic change just because we lost last week. It wasn’t about that.
“Guys that I played with they would tell you that I’d do everything I could to keep them in these players in my side. I didn’t want to make change but when something stretches out as long as it has now and it’s well over two years since he’s made a Test match hundred.
“If the numbers aren’t there, I was all about just picking on talent. And we’ve seen that it has worked in the past.
“There has to be one, two, three, four guys out there that when you watch them bat, they just make batting look that little bit easier than the others.”
Ponting again pushed the cases of untried youngsters Campbell Kellaway and Ollie Peake, as well as saying Nathan McSweeney deserved another crack.
“By trying these guys, I don’t see what we’re losing. That’s what I’m looking at. We’re not losing anything,” he continued.
“And I’m not about throwing bag of greens away, either, it’s not about that. But we need to find someone.
“We need to find a few quickly because in a couple of years’ time, there’s going to be seven of these guys that are going to vacate this team at once.
“And I’ve been there as well as the captain. It’s not easy to bring or fill that many holes in what’s been a very experienced and good cricket team for a long time.”
