Australia have a lot to play for

A new concept gives Australia a chance to scratch a new guard. Following a winter of serious discontent the team will attempt to dissolve their Ashes memories and start answering some of the pages of questions from a series that highlighted gaping chinks and forced changes. The squad that the World XI will face in the first of three one-day games starting in Melbourne on Wednesday carries players unknown and untried - these are characteristics similar to the Super Series.

Australia will test their experiments against a line-up unmatched in its global brilliance, even with the absence of Sachin Tendulkar. Previous Rest of the World outfits were picked during last minutes, but there is no doubting the quality of candidates. Inzamam-ul-Haq has eventually replaced Tendulkar and Shaun Pollock can choose a fast bowling attack for the first game from himself, Shoaib Akhtar, Jacques Kallis and Andrew Flintoff with Muttiah Muralitharan and Daniel Vettori as the slow bowling back-up.

The cheerful mode of the visitors will be matched by a nervous yet publicly confident mood from the Australians. As a Cricket Australia outfit ploughs through the England wrongs, Ricky Ponting and his squad talk about "one bad series". They appear relaxed about an assignment that a year ago appeared to be a formality, but now has quickly marked them as eager underdogs.

Over the past month Ponting's role has been dissected in an almost prime ministerial capacity. Now he can answer his critics collectively on home turf. With a couple of new faces arriving and more wrinkles set to appear, Ponting has the opportunity to develop a squad in his own image rather than hanging on to the dusting relics of Steve Waugh's rule.

Act one begins with three one-day matches on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday before the most compelling game of a concocted series, the six-day Super Test in Sydney starting on October 14. The glare in the undercover and air-conditioned Telsta Dome will be striking, but there is little chance of the roof raising - although Kevin Pietersen will surely try it - during the limited-overs matches that should offer undoubted bouts of brilliance without the lasting reminders of a Test.

Changes in Australian personnel as well as the Ashes loss and the end of local football seasons have slowed ticket sales. A first-up contest of Pollock to Simon Katich holds less appeal than him running in to a clubbing Matthew Hayden. Cameron White, the Victoria legspinner who was called in for the equally anonymous Brad Hogg, and Stuart Clark, a replacement for Shaun Tait, line up in the 14-man squad alongside James Hopes. The three new players who can shop unbothered in their local supermarkets will stare at men reluctant to step away from bodyguards shielding them from masses of admirers. They will not be the only ones in a peaceful state of shock and awe.

The World XI, which omitted Makhaya Ntini and Chris Gayle from match one, is a team of such riches - one of Sehwag, Lara, Pietersen, Dravid, Flintoff, Kallis, Sangakkara and Afridi will bat at No. 8 - that it will provide Australia's generation next with a guide to whether the 2007 World Cup is an event to be watched from the dressing room or the lounge chair.

Although Ponting dismissed this series as the official start of the road to the West Indies, it provides Australia with renewed purpose against a wildly impressive unit of united nations, who will be intent on impressing with their vibrant mix of skills and personalities. Individually, the contest will be fascinating, but there is little doubt as to which team has more to play for.

For the World XI prize money, prestige and a chance to defeat a giant are the lures. Australia, who sealed their No. 1 status in both forms of the game before the Ashes and held it despite the England slips, begin an era that will be analysed more than any period over the past decade.

Shown to be fallible, they are waiting to discover whether the next chapter is one of further mortal stumbles or a swift return to lasting success. The Super Series will help supporters across the globe form judgments, but the performances of Australia will also be critical to a custom-made contest sweating on similar verdicts over novelty, commercial and acceptance values.

World XI
1 Shahid Afridi, 2 Virender Sehwag, 3 Kumar Sangakkara (wk), 4 Rahul Dravid, 5 Jacques Kallis, 6 Brian Lara, 7 Kevin Pietersen, 8 Andrew Flintoff, 9 Shaun Pollock (capt), 10 Daniel Vettori, 11 Muttiah Muralitharan, 12 Shoaib Akhtar

Australia
1 Adam Gilchrist (wk), 2 Simon Katich, 3 Ricky Ponting (capt), 4 Damien Martyn, 5 Michael Hussey, 6 Michael Clarke, 7 Shane Watson, 8 Andrew Symonds, 9 Cameron White, 10 Brett Lee, 11 Glenn McGrath, 12 Nathan Bracken