Voges puts Test career on the chopping block with bizarre shot

WATCH: Adam Voges’ Test career appears over after yet another failure against South Africa which involved a bizarre attempt to play the ball, then leave it.

ADAM Voges’ Test career appears over after yet another failure against South Africa.

The 37-year-old looks to have played his last match for Australia, but if that’s the case, he finishes with the second highest Test average in history.

Voges averages 61.87 from his 20 Test matches, second only to Sir Donald Bradman who averaged 99.94.

However, there is an expectation now that Australia must move towards a youth policy.

It’s Australia’s lowest point since the 1980s and a generational shift is being pushed as the only option for selectors.

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South Africa paceman Kyle Abbott celebrates his wicket of Australia's batsman Adam Voges.

NSW batsman Kurtis Patterson shapes as a leading candidate, with Peter Handscomb, Marcus Stoinis, Nic Maddinson, Jake Lehmann and Cameron Bancroft some of the other leading batsmen in Shield cricket.

Voges was caught in no-man’s land by South African bowler Kyle Abbott, leaving his bat hang out at a short wide delivery and guiding it into the slip cordon.

The dismissals of both Voges and Callum Ferguson graphically demonstrate the demoralisation and mental paralysis now afflicting this Australian team.

Both failed to make any definitive movement to play a shot and they seemed riddled with indecision.

South African bowler Kyle Abbott reacts after dismissing Australian batsman Adam Voges.

It is what the coaches tell you is ‘cluttered mind.’ Their confidence is simply shot and they don’t know whether to play or to leave. They are over thinking their moves and making up their mind before the ball is bowled.

Voges will become the ultimate cricket trivia night question if he is dropped with an average of 61.87.

It must be even more devastating to have failed on the very ground upon which he compiled a very good 269 last year.

But at his age there is simply no upside in persevering with him. And his problems are both mental and technical now.

An older player with his numbers needs to be a rallying point in the shed for the younger players but Voges is looking confused and in two minds.

Adam Voges walks off the ground after he was dismissed.

He has too many issues with his own form to support the younger blokes in the order. He must go. It’s a cruel game.

Likewise Ferguson seemed almost hypnotised by the ball that flew off his edge. For two batsmen to be dismissed in this fashion inside the first hour tells us that this Australian team is undergoing what Steve Waugh used to call mental disintegration.

None of them feel confident of their place in the team.

And credit where it is due. The South Africans are offering no respite for the batsmen and unless they have a dash at the ball and take a risk or leave it emphatically they end up in no man’s land like Voges and Ferguson.