Under-pressure Marnus Labuschagne’s Test career is in the balance after failing to score on the second day of the deciding contest in Cape Town.
The Queenslander has been the source of fierce selection debate over the past two years as his diminishing returns have taken a toll on the Test team.
However, selectors have continuously maintained faith in the hopes Labuschagne can recapture his best, which saw him boast a Test average of more than 60.
But the 32-year-old may have forced their hands after a hapless four-ball duck at Newlands against South African spinner Simon Harmer.
Labuschagne made a series of good-looking starts in the first two Tests, enough to maintain his spot in the team.
He was savaged for his second-innings dismissal in Gqeberha, falling on 39 attempting to hit Harmer over the fence into a howling breeze while batting to save the match.
But with plenty of change already happening around him, he was named for the final match of the series.
And there were hopes the game was set up for him to flourish with the pitch good for batting and Travis Head laying a strong 50-run foundation with Matt Renshaw before chopping on against Harmer for 41.
But Labuschagne looked hopeless from the moment he walked to the crease.
He prodded his first ball back to the bowler with it falling short of a catch before his second ball lobbed short of mid-wicket.
He safely navigated the third ball, but the fourth had some minor drift, which was too much for the out-of-form right-hander, who went back and got a thick outside edge with his prodding defence, which went to first slip.
Labuschagne punched his bat on the way off and now has just one more innings to prove he should play in the home summer against New Zealand.
His wicket took some of the focus off Head, who once again fell chopping the ball back onto his stumps.
The South Australian had looked in great touch again before that, playing just as well as he did in the second innings in Gqeberha, where he notched a 13th Test century and just his second on foreign soil.
