Former greats David Warner and Mark Waugh have questioned the make-up of Australia’s Test team, after Pat Cummins confirmed a whopping four changes at the toss in Cape Town.

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Australia’s changes are the most they have made to their XI mid-series since the 2018 tour of South Africa, when the Sandpapergate scandal saw Warner, Steve Smith and Cameorn Bancroft suspended for the fourth Test while Mitchell Starc was injured.

Eight years on, and Smith’s neck injury forced a fourth change on match morning, with Beau Webster, Scott Boland and Nic Maddinson also making way for Josh Inglis, Cameron Green, Cooper Connolly and Nathan Lyon.

Reports on Test eve revealed Boland was set to make way for the returning Lyon, despite his five-wicket haul and defiant 40 with the bat to be one of few Australians to excel in a disastrous second Test loss in Gqeberha.

It’s the eighth time in a career just shy of five years old that the Victorian has been axed, despite a stunning record featuring 87 wickets from 20 Tests at an average of just 18.44.

But Boland was reduced to holding the tape measure for Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood at Newlands on match morning, as the pace trio marked out their run-ups.

Confirming Boland’s omission at the coin toss, captain Pat Cummins said the call was “very hard”.

“He’s such a class player,” he said.

“As it was hard to leave out Nathan Lyon last week.

“It’s a good problem to have, but you could consider him very unlucky.”

In the Fox Cricket studio, former great Mark Waugh spoke for many when he said he was “really surprised” by the call – especially with Cummins winning the toss and electing to bowl first for the second straight match.

“I would have snuck him in there somewhere, especially when you’re bowling first,” he said.

“I just would have played Boland. I know it would have been very tough on either Hazlewood or Starc, but to me, he was our best bowler by a long way (in the second Test).

“Forget about his batting – he was actually our best batsman too in the second innings!”

“It’s a tricky one, but I think when someone’s in really good form, you should play them.”

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When pushed by co-panellists David Warner, Kerry O’Keeffe and Brendon Julian as to who he’d have left out, Waugh nominated Starc as the likeliest candidate to make way.

“I don’t think Mitchell Starc’s bowling as well as he has done for a while, but that’s a tough call on him. I definitely would have played Boland,” he said.

O’Keeffe, though, questioned the choice to recall Lyon, with Cummins revealing at the toss Australia’s belief the pitch had “moisture” to exploit early on.

A similar line of thinking saw the team go with Boland as a fourth seamer in the second Test, though Lyon’s control was badly missed in the later stages of the Proteas’ long first innings.

“If your intention when you won the toss was to bowl, why do you play Nathan Lyon instead of Boland? If that was your mindset?” O’Keeffe wondered.

“That’s their thinking – if the ball gets soft and it flattens out, then Boland is expendable. But we haven’t seen it yet, his numbers don’t suggest he is.”

Warner, meanwhile, questioned Cooper Connolly’s recall in the middle order, with Beau Webster making way.

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Webster had served as an extra seamer to start the series, with the former Australian opener surprised that Connolly’s part-time spin has been preferred, with the returning Cameron Green unlikely to bowl.

“Would you not have kept Webster there as an extra fast bowler?” Warner asked.

“You’ve brought in Connolly as a spinner, if you’re going to bowl first and you know you’re going to bowl first.

“I know we’re short of runs, but do you need that extra fast bowler?”

However, despite pumping for Boland to be retained, Waugh admitted that Australia’s chances of winning the match and the series are unlikely to be decided by the make-up of the bowling attack.

“At the end of the day, whichever quick they didn’t play is probably not going to lose this Test match – our batting is,” he told Fox Cricket.

“We’ve got to bat so much better. (It was) inexcusable the way we batted in that last Test, to lose 14 wickets on one day on a pretty good batting wicket.

“If we bat like that again it doesn’t matter who bowls, we’ll get beat again.”