Marcus Stoinis the key in Cameron Bancroft’s Ashes downfall

Steve Smith, left, chats with Cameron Bancroft before the start of play at Headingley. Picture: Getty Images

The logic behind the axing of Cameron Bancroft can be traced all the all the way back to a player not even in the squad — Marcus Stoinis.

Australia’s selectors had a solid World Cup but the one thing they regretted was keeping faith with out-of-form Stoinis throughout the tournament in the hope he was one match away from firing up.

That Stoinis was brutally omitted from the two teams named for an Ashes trial match immediately after the World Cup showed how deeply the selectors regretted not cutting him when it mattered.

It left them with the strong feeling they would not make the same mistake in the Ashes.

If a player was out of form and showing obvious signs of being outclassed, they would move sooner rather than later.

If their gut instinct proved wrong then so be it but there would be no regrets.

The big calls — like leaving some of their best fast bowlers out of the first Test — would be made without fear.

Bancroft fought hard in the first two Tests but lacked the two qualities every successful Test opener needs — slickness through the gears (he was stuck in first) and a sturdy forward defence. At short leg, where he has pouched all 11 catches that have come his way in Test cricket, he resembled a human oak tree so immovable is he when balls are flying his way.

The trouble is, when out of form, he has that oak tree stiffness at the batting crease when he can exist but is unable to rotate the strike.

As Dean Jones says, when you lose your front foot defence you lose everything and England could sense Bancroft’s defence was getting an awkward inside-out look about it and ripe for an outside edge.

Bancroft leaves as a man who failed to crack the Test match code.

His Test record of 446 runs run at 26 from 10 matches is well shy of the numbers returned by the man he beat for the spot, Joe Burns, who has four centuries from 16 Tests.

Banned for a year after being the man who slipped sandpaper down his pants in the ball-tampering affair in Cape Town, Bancroft did well to come from the clouds and seal an Ashes berth many felt he did not deserve.

Maybe he got there too quickly.

There is a theory among people who know him that he used up so much emotional energy trying to reclimb the mountain to make the Ashes squad he had no energy left when he realised there was an even bigger mountain behind it.

There is no sense he is unlucky not to get another chance.

Will he be back? Possibly. Coach Justin Langer is a great fan because of Bancroft’s flawless work ethic.

And if there is one thing certain in Australian cricket you never know what is around the corner.

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