Australian captain Ricky Ponting said that his side's ability to keep digging themselves out of trouble was the mark of a great team.

Speaking after Australia had succeeded in the highest run chase in one-day history to beat South Africa by three wickets at St George's Park on Saturday, Ponting said: "Every time we've got ourselves into trouble, we've been good enough to get out of it. That's the mark of a great team."

Australia hauled in South Africa's 326 for three with five balls to spare to take a 5-0 in the six-match series after a blistering 52 from Adam Gilchrist and contributions of 92 from Ponting and 91 from Darren Lehmann.

"It's the best run chase I've been involved with," said Ponting. "We had an amazing start from Gillie. But I'd be lying if I said I was confident of winning at the start. But the way we approached it was outstanding. We threw caution to the wind and attacked from ball one."

Australia discarded veterans Steve and Mark Waugh for this series, but Ponting said that other players such as Lehmann had stepped up.

"Darren was outstanding the way he played today," said Ponting. "You can tell he's an experienced player. I think he's one of the best one-day players in the world."

He noted, however, that Australia had not bowled or fielded particularly well.

"We broke another record today – the highest score against us," he said. "It's probably good that it happened to us, though. To go for 326 is a bit of a wake-up call for some of the bowlers and the fielders."

Australia's one-day series here should serve the side well during next year's World Cup campaign, felt Ponting.

"We've had a chance to play under all conditions here," he said. "We've played on all the major grounds. This one here will have one of the World Cup semi-finals. It will all hold us in good stead for the World Cup, there's no doubt about that."

Beaten captain Shaun Pollock said it had been a "pretty awesome effort by them. They came out with all guns blazing. We expected them to come hard at us, and I thought we did pretty well after the first six overs or so.

"They're playing with a lot of confidence at the moment. You need the little breaks to go your way, but it's not running for us at the moment," he said.

"They've got a good unit. It takes a brave team to drop the Waugh brothers, but at the end of the day they were probably right," said Pollock.

© CricInfo