WA’s Bancroft is once again the Sheffield Shield’s leading run-scorer after making 945 runs – almost 300 more than the next best – last summer.
All three will have another chance to impress for the Prime Minister’s XI against Pakistan in Canberra next week.
However, Ponting believes Bancroft needed to be called up for his first Test since 2019 due to his high run haul.
“If you look at those three guys, I think it’s pretty clear that Bancroft is the one with the runs on the board and I wouldn’t be surprised if they did it.” [selectors] Let’s continue down that path,” he told SEN on Thursday. “If we turn the clock back about six months, it might have been a slightly different order to the current one.
“I think they probably had Harris coming back a while ago. To me now it feels like [there’s] “There’s a little bit more movement behind Cameron Bancroft getting the first shot.”
But Ponting warned against such a move, saying Green should be forced to earn his place by finding form in the Shield with WA.
But the prodigiously talented 24-year-old was dropped during the Ashes, just months after his first Test century, for Mitchell Marsh.
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“I think Cameron Green could just sit back and bide his time and wait for the opportunity to come back,” Ponting said. “He can get plenty of runs in Shield cricket and force his way back into the side.
“[Marnus] “Labuschagne has been outstanding in Australia’s number three role, it is very much a specialist position.”
Maxwell played the last of his seven Tests in 2017, but his three recent international centuries, two in the ODI World Cup and one in a T20, have been irresistible.
“I could see him returning to a trial lineup because of the all-around game he brings in those conditions,” Ponting said. “He [201] Not in that game against Afghanistan, which is the most remarkable one-day tackle I’ve ever seen.
“I’ve been to a lot of games, seen a lot of games, played a lot of games, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Ponting, who captained Australia to World Cup titles in 2003 and 2007, has urged Pat Cummins’ team to keep up the fury in the Test summer when they host Pakistan and the struggling West Indies.
“I would say go as hard as you can and really try to bury these teams and win as convincingly as possible,” Ponting said.
The squad for the first Test in Perth is expected to be named shortly after the conclusion of the current round of Sheffield Shield matches and before the Prime Minister’s XI contest.
