George Bailey calls on Ricky Ponting's expert advice for ODI series in India

Australia's stand-in skipper George Bailey has tapped into former skipper Ricky Ponting's expertise on how to upstage the current world No.1 team in their own backyard.

Ahead of the lone Twenty20 international against India, Bailey revealed that he called on Ponting before making the trip to the subcontinent.

Despite the threat of India's far superior spin bowling and helping turning tracks, Ponting led Australia to ODI series wins in India in 2007 and 2009.  

In spite of their recent poor Test form in India, Australia have a better ODI record here in the last decade, winning 12 and losing 7 games in the sub-continent.

In the absence of regular skipper Michael Clarke, who is recuperating from a back injury and the head coach Darren Lehmann, who is rested before the Ashes Down Under, Australia will have the experience of vice-captain Brad Haddin and all-rounder Shane Watson.

Bailey believes the tourists have sufficient wherewithal to remind them what they are capable of on foreign soil.

"There're a few guys who will be on this tour who have (played in winning teams) and we'll tap into that," Bailey is quoted as saying in Australian media.

"I spoke to Ricky Ponting a couple of days ago about one-day cricket in India and a few of the things he thinks can make a difference."

Bailey seemed to have chosen the right person for advice as the former skipper was the country's most successful ODI batsman on Indian soil, having scored 5 hundreds and 9 fifties in 46 games.

Bailey hopes that the wickets in the one-day games, will not give as much assistance to the Indian spinners like they did in the dustbowls during the 4-0 whitewash Australia suffered earlier this year. India's spin twins Ravindra Jadeja and Ravichandran Ashwin combined to take 58 wickets in that series.

"I think the one-day wickets are pretty good cricket wickets," he said.

"The Test wickets generally tend to spin a fair bit and challenge us in that way.

"(The one-day wickets) tend to be a bit more of an even contest between bat and ball," he added.