WA’s Bancroft is again the Sheffield Shield’s top run-scorer after making 945 runs – almost 300 more than the next best – last summer.
Related
Ball-by-ball: how Maxwell conjured another miracle
-
Warner’s Test retirement could lead to batting order reshuffle
-
Mitchell Marsh: ‘Past battling, I’m here to enjoy my cricket and have fun’
All three will get another chance to impress for the Prime Minister’s XI against Pakistan in Canberra next week.
However, Ponting believes Bancroft needed to be recalled for his first Test since 2019 due to his sheer weight of runs.
“If you look at those three guys, I think it’s quite clear that Bancroft is the one that’s got the runs on the board and I wouldn’t be surprised if they [selectors] go that way,” he told SEN on Thursday. “If you wind the clock back about six months it might have been a slightly different order than what it is now.
“I think they probably had Harris as the one that would come back in a while ago. To me now it sort of feels [there’s] a bit more of a groundswell behind Cameron Bancroft getting first crack.”
But Ponting has cautioned against such a move, saying Green should be forced to earn his spot by finding form in the Shield with WA.
But the prodigiously talented 24-year-old was dropped during the Ashes, just months after his maiden Test century, for Mitchell Marsh.
“I think Cameron Green might just have to sit back and bide his time and wait for the opportunity to come back,” Ponting said. “He can get a truckload of runs in Shield cricket and sort of force his way back into the side.
“[Marnus] Labuschagne has been outstanding at number three for Australia, it’s 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 getting back into a Test line-up because of the all round game that he brings in those conditions,” Ponting said. “The [201] not out in that game against Afghanistan, which is the most remarkable one-day innings I’ve ever seen.
“I’ve been around a lot of games, watched a lot of games, played a lot of games, I’ve never ever seen anything like that.”
Ponting, who captained Australia to World Cup titles in 2003 and 2007, has urged Pat Cummins’ team to maintain the rage in the Test summer when they host Pakistan and the struggling West Indies.
“I’d be saying to go as hard as you can and just really try and bury these teams and win as convincingly as you can,” Ponting said.
The squad for the first Test in Perth is expected to be named shortly after the conclusion of the ongoing round of Sheffield Shield matches and before the PM’s XI contest.
Source: ESPN Crickinfo