Johannesburg: Amid calls from various former cricketers for AB de Villiers' return to Test cricket, Proteas Test skipper Faf du Plessis has said that the team must move on without the superstar batsman.

Last August, de Villiers took time off to get a number of injuries treated and then suffered an elbow injury that ruled him out of the Test series against Australia.

While he returned to limited-overs cricket for the Proteas in February, he opted out of the Test series in New Zealand in March – an absence he has since extended to the four-Test tour of England and the succeeding two Tests against Bangladesh.

The 33-year-old, who last played a Test more 19 months ago, was missed dearly by the Proteas who suffered a 1-3 defeat in the recently concluded series against England.

After the Proteas' 177-run loss at Old Trafford in the final Test on Monday, du Plessis said, "I would love AB to play – we all know how good he is and we missed him, but we've spent too much time talking about when he is going to come back.

"The hope of him coming back is something we need to move past, we need to find someone else for that role. If AB comes back it's a huge bonus but I don't expect him to come back into the Test team," Sport24 quoted the Proteas skipper as saying.

South Africa have a busy summer that will see them host Bangladesh, India and Australia in Test series.

And former skipper Shaun Pollock recently said that the Proteas must persuade De Villiers to return to the Test arena if they wish to turn around their batting performance in the near future.

Pollock believes that Cricket South Africa (CSA) should focus on convincing the 33-year-old to come-back to the Test circuit, if only for the series against India and Australia.

"The bowling line-up looks settled, they've got Keshav Maharaj who has come on in leaps and bounds and maybe even Dale Steyn could be back at some stage we would hope," Pollock said.

"But I definitely think they've got to go down the route of trying to convince AB de Villiers, even if it is just for six months for those two big tours, that he needs to make himself available," he added.

De Villiers has notched up more than 8,000 runs in 106 Tests, including 21 hundreds, two double centuries and 39 half-centuries. He has also amassed 9,319 runs from 222 ODIs and 1,603 runs from 76 T20Is.