Australia one-day captain Ricky Ponting believes Sri Lanka off spinner Muttiah Muralitharan is the world's best bowler and playing against him is largely guesswork.

Batsmen had to fend off Muralitharan, who is due to make his comeback from a hernia operation in Thursday's match between the two countries, while trying to score heavily from the other Sri Lanka bowlers, Ponting said.

"Who knows?" said Ponting on Wednesday when asked how his batsmen would handle the 30-year-old.

"I think just knowing how important a player he is for their side, you negate him as much as you can and try to score off the other bowlers," Ponting told reporters.

"The world's best bowler coming back into any side is going to help them, probably more so for Sri Lanka. They really feed off him and run off him.

"He might be bowling very well and back into his stride tomorrow. If he is it's going to be very hard for any of our batsmen to get on top of him."

Rated by Wisden Cricket Monthly last month as the best bowler in test cricket history, Muralitharan's presence will give a boost to the side, especially as he is the fourth leading wicket-taker in one-day internationals with 297 victims.

Without Muralitharan, Sri Lanka have lost all three of their triangular series matches against Australia and England and suffered a humiliating 10-wicket defeat against Australia A on Tuesday.

No team have lost their first three matches and qualified for the final in the triangular one-day series in Australia since the competition started in 1979-80.

"The last few days he's been bowling a lot," Sri Lanka captain Sanath Jayasuriya told reporters of Muralitharan's progress.

"He has (been) the match-winning bowler for Sri Lankan cricket and he can do lots of things to change a match. When he comes to the team it's a big difference."