Faf du Plessis says JP Duminy has his work cut out to revive his Test career.

The left-hander has struggled for form recently, not having scored a fifty in his past eight Test innings. Duminy’s lean spell with the bat prompted the selectors to drop him for the second Test against England, which the Proteas won by 340 runs.

The Proteas skipper said it was this lack of form that contributed to the decision, but said Duminy understood the position of the selectors.

‘As I said when he got let out of the team, it was purely from a performance point of view and he was the first to understand that his performances over the last while haven’t been there,’ Du Plessis told reporters on the eve of the third Test.

Duminy has since returned home to South Africa and Du Plessis has revealed that he has slipped down the pecking order for a for a place in the Test team.

‘If he wants to [regain his place],he’s got a long way back. Theunis de Bruyn will now be our next in batsman, and then we’ve got Aiden Markram, who’s an exciting young batsman.’

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Duminy will have to take a decision about the way forward for his Test career, with Du Plessis remarking that he may decide to focus solely on his ODI career with the national side, instead of playing both formats.

‘One can never write off a player. He will have to decide if he wants to fight his way back into the Test team, or if he just wants to focus on playing white-ball cricket for South Africa.

‘That’s a decision that he would have to make.’

To date, Duminy has scored six centuries and eight half-centuries at an average of 32.85 in a career spanning 46 Tests.