It's the curious case of Cameron Bancroft.

A player who was so recently performing at the highest level, playing the first two Tests of the northern Ashes and in the Australian squad just three months ago, now finds himself this week dropped from the WA state team.

Bancroft's rapid demise means he will go from playing at the home of cricket, Lord's, in August to Willetton's home ground of Burrendah Reserve in Perth's southern suburbs this month.

It's a stunning fall for a player often spoken of as one of Australia's next permanent openers and who came back from a nine-month ban for his role in the ball-tampering scandal.

So how did it come to this?

A dire set of stats

The numbers from his red-ball Shield season make for miserable reading.

Bancroft has managed only 158 runs at an average of 13 with three ducks and a high score of just 30.

Bancroft has endured a lean Shield season and is now set for a stint in grade cricket. ( AAP: Richard Wainwright )

Prodigious young all-rounder Cameron Green has scored three hundreds in that time and matched Bancroft's season tally of 158 in a single unbeaten first innings during the last fixture against Tasmania.

A renowned cricket "nuffy", Bancroft is regarded as an extremely dedicated trainer in working on his game.

So, where is it going awry? Is it the WA batting coaching set-up? Or is the message not being heeded by the former Test opener?

'Glaring' holes in technical play

Former Australian Test captain Kim Hughes said there were glaring technical issues in Bancroft's game.

Bancroft has failed to seize his chances at the top of the Australian order. ( AP: Rick Rycroft )

"He keeps making the same mistake time and time again. And you could sort it out in the nets in about five minutes," he told ABC Radio Perth.

"Your head is the rudder. Your body will follow your head."

The issue for Bancroft was highlighted at the beginning of the season by repeated dismissals caught at leg gully.

But if that is the issue, with a head falling away to the offside and bat plane coming from third slip, it is very difficult not to lift a delivery on your hip in the air to a leg gully fielder.

Speaking during the Big Bash League on ABC Radio Perth, Bancroft was jovial but aware of the state of his technique.

"They put in a leg gully today and I played a beautiful leg glance that went straight into the ground to his left. So that's coming along nicely," he said.

"I'm not really thinking about that stuff too much.

"Definitely when I get a chance to have a net and groove my technique, they're things I concentrate on, but in T20 you don't have time to think about what you're doing. You've just got to look to score runs.

"Hopefully I just keep chipping away at the other things and in the long-term they'll improve."

Have we seen the last of Bancroft?

There is also a strange resemblance between Bancroft's demise and that of baby-faced former Test opener Matthew Renshaw.

When Renshaw scored a maiden Test century in the New Year's Test of 2017 at the tender age of 20, he looked like a lock at the top of the Australian order for the next decade.

Matthew Renshaw was dropped from the Australian order in favour of Bancroft. ( AAP: Rob Blakers )

Coincidently, in these now interwoven stories, it was less than a year later he was dropped in favour of Bancroft.

Since the start of the 2018 Australian summer, Renshaw has averaged a miserly 21 with only two half-centuries in 14 matches.

Renshaw is currently taking a break from cricket to freshen up.

Even with his tough summer, Bancroft remains a player with enough talent to have scored 14 first-class centuries by the age of 27.

The opener will return to Durham in the Australian winter as he tries to rediscover his run-scoring form.

It's unlikely we've seen the last of Bancroft, but the opener has work to do. ( AAP: Richard Wainwright )

Last season he was prolific there, with 726 runs at an average of 45.37 in nine championship matches while also captaining the county side.

He will also link up with former WA opening partner Marcus North, who is Durham's cricket director.

It is highly unlikely we've seen the last of Cameron Bancroft at domestic level and potentially on the international scene, but right now there is work to do.