Australia to keep faith with David Warner despite horror Ashes form, believes Ricky Ponting

The opener has averaged just 9.87 across the first four Tests but should be retained according to the former captain

David Warner is unlikely to lose his place in the Australia team for the fifth Ashes Test against England despite his poor form during the series, according to Ricky Ponting.

Though the tourists have retained the urn thanks to victory at Old Trafford in the fourth Test, Warner has struggled for runs at the top.

In eight innings the 32-year-old has been out for a duck three times and amassed just 79 runs at 9.87, the lowest of any player to have registered an average in the Australia team.

Warner has been terrorised by England's Stuart Broad having been dismissed six times by the seamer.

With the urn secure, Australia are chasing a first series win in England since 2001 and Ponting, who worked with the Baggy Green during the World Cup and scored 13,378 runs during his Test career, is not anticipating any alterations.

"Davey has obviously struggled but he's a quality player and if you looked at that, even if they were to leave him out of that game, he's going to start back in Australia anyway because his record in Australia is so good," he told Cricket.com.au.

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"I can't see them making any changes.

"They backed (Marcus) Harris in a couple of games ago for certain reasons so keep the group together and hopefully have some slight improvement in most of those players in The Oval Test."

Steve Smith has been the standout performer for Australia, scoring 671 runs in five innings at a staggering average of 134.20.

But underpinning his formidable scores has been a potent seam attack led by Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood, who have taken 24 and 18 wickets respectively during the series.

Ponting believes of all the changes the Aussie selectors could make, shuffling the bowlers - James Pattinson and Peter Siddle are waiting in reserve - is the most likely.

"They might think about the fast bowlers and just the workloads Cummins and Hazlewood have been through in this game," he added.

"Patty has been up for a long time, played all the World Cup games, played every Test match here and shouldered a lot of the workload, so I'm sure that will be spoken about."