HARARE, May 30: Australia captain Ricky Ponting has called for Zimbabwe to retain their Test status, as long as the African nation can resolve its bitter player dispute.

Zimbabwe have been forced to pick a second-string team since last month when 15 white players made themselves unavailable over what they see as racially driven selection policies.

"It's not for me to make that judgement (on losing their status), but they have got a lot of work to do,"' Ponting told reporters after his side had completed a 3-0 series whitewash over Zimbabwe in the third One-day International on Saturday.

"We don't want them out of cricket, we just want them to be able to improve and be able to put a good side out on the park." Ponting added that the world game was a chain as strong as its weakest link.

"We need every country around the world to have strong international teams, and their team is not as strong as it has been in the past," he said. "Hopefully they can get it back to a similar sort of standard to what they had in the past."

Depleted Zimbabwe have been beaten 10 times in a row, in five One-day Internationals and two Tests against Sri Lanka and in three ODIs against Australia. Two scheduled Tests against Australia were called off because of Zimbabwe's problems in fielding a Test-strength side. -Reuters