Ricky Ponting finally, emphatically, shed a run of poor scores with his 26th one-day hundred on Sunday night, not just winning the man of the match award but also becoming the fifth batsman to score 11,000 one-day runs at the SCG.

After fashioning his side's 18-run win over India in a high-scoring game, the Australian skipper was as relieved as he was delighted. "It's been a long time coming," he said. "It's good to get some runs on that wicket, which has been the best we have had so far in the series as the scores indicate. It's good for us three -- Mathew Hayden and Andrew Symonds being the other two -- to get among the runs. Hopefully, we go into the finals with the momentum with us."

Asked of his approach, he replied, "I was a bit positive and a bit more aggressive. Hopefully, I will continue this through the summer. This win gives us the psychological edge because India is going to be the most likely opponent in the finals. Every game we win is good psychologically."

For the first time in the competition, a team crossed 300 as the Aussies posted 317 for seven. "We had nothing to lose and our bowlers were not under pressure for the first time in this competition," Ponting remarked. "We've got some work to do though in our next match at Melbourne, but we are pretty happy with our performance.

"I thought we always had the game under control," he said of India's fightback from 51 for four to 299 all out, "but it is a bit worrying. Maybe we were a bit complacent and relaxing when India was four wickets down. Our bowling was a little bit short tonight."

All praise for India's fightback, and particularly for Gautam Gambhir's brilliant hundred, Ponting added, "Gambhir was outstanding. Once he settled down, it was easy for him. He worked the ball around and got a lot of runs down the third man area. He picked his gaps and ran well between the wickets. It was an impressive innings from him.

There was a massive Indian tilt to the 30,000-strong turn-out at the SCG. "Sometimes we wondered if we were playing in Sydney or Mumbai! Whatever the Indians did there received a huge cheer while we struggled to get a round of applause from the crowd," he whined.