Melbourne, Jan. 16 : Australian cricket captain Ricky Ponting believes that his side is in the form of its life, and has the momentum going into the first of five one-dayers against South Africa.

According to Fox Sports, Ponting and his men must fight for every centimeter of advantage, and therefore, it comes as no surprise that he has declared a psychological victory for his men.

He has suggested that the visitors are in a state without their captain Graeme Smith and were over-run with meddling generals during the last Twenty20 match.

Ponting says that it is important to regain the "psychological edge" back from the visitors and believes there has been a shift in the past two weeks.

"We''ve done everything we can to make that happen," Ponting said after serving breakfast to fans at a promotional event in Melbourne''s Federation Square Thursday morning.

"We obviously played some excellent Test cricket in Sydney and the way we''ve approached the Twenty20s and played in the Twenty20s has been very encouraging as well. But you don''t take too much out of that."

"It''s the start of a series and we know South Africa are a very good one-day side and we''re going to have to play at our best if we want to win this series.

Australia is missing Mitchell Johnson from the first two games while Shane Watson, Brett Lee, Andrew Symonds and Stuart Clark are out injured. The good news is that Michael Clarke has been cleared for the match.

His inclusion means stand-by batsman Dave Warner has flown home to Sydney.

Australia has not contested a one-day match since playing Bangladesh in September. It has since played nine Tests and three Twenty20 games.

Ponting believes the high-scoring demands of Twenty20 plus its emphasis on good fielding and tight bowling will change the approach to the one-dayers. (ANI)