Bracken is back after the birth of his first child while Ponting is fully recovered from a hamstring injury that kept him out of the first two one-dayers. "I'm hoping to play tomorrow," the captain added. "Everything is looking positive for me at the moment."

Ponting added that skipping the first two games had not been easy for him. "Anytime you miss cricket for Australia, it is a hard thing, especially when you are one of the senior players and the captain of the team. I actually felt I was alright to play the first game in Bangalore. I try to understand why I haven't played the last couple of games. Maybe they wanted to make sure I was 100 percent."

Asked if it would be a straight swap between himself and Brad Hodge, Ponting replied, "We haven't finalised the team. If I do come in, it might not necessarily be Hodge. He has missed out in a couple of games and (Brad) Haddin has played very, very well. Coming here, we would have said Hodge was the first to be selected before Haddin. That is one thing we are going to talk about."

In both Bangalore and Kochi, Australia topped 300, and that after losing early wickets. "Momentum is a wonderful thing in sport," Ponting pointed out. "We have the momentum going our way. It is really important we capitalise on that and not take little things for granted. We have batted well in both games so far, making over 300 runs. We were four for 90 in Bangalore, and two and three down pretty early in Kochi. We managed to fight back pretty well with some excellent batting. It is important we start from scratch again tomorrow. We must continue to build on the things we have started. The last thing you want to do is to hand the momentum straight back to the opposition."

His take on the 9.00 am start? "In Kochi, the wicket seemed to do a bit early on before settling down. I don't think the toss is going to make a major impact on any of the games over here."

Meanwhile, Bracken hoped the conditions would favour him. "I have been told that the ball swings here quite early," said Bracken on Thursday. "If that is the case, it will be great."

Bracken said he had enjoyed the atmosphere in Indian grounds. "I have enjoyed the cricket, the crowd. It is a different challenge if we look at it in a positive way," he stated, simply. "If you look at it in a negative way, you are going to struggle."