If they didn't laugh, they'd cry.

Australia's injury-riddled tour of India has veered into tragicomic territory, with allrounder Moises Henriques - the replacement for James Hopes - pinging a hamstring.

Henriques, who suffered the damage to his right hamstring while in the field at Mohali, will now become the fifth player sent home from the tour.

Victorian allrounder Andrew McDonald will fly in as his replacement, while little-known NSW quick Burt Cockley has been called up to replace Peter Siddle.

"Andrew played very well in the recent Champions League in India, was in very good form in the first Sheffield Shield game scoring a hundred and bowling impressively on a batsman friendly Adelaide wicket and backing that up with a dominant display in tonight's one day match," said selection chairman Andrew Hilditch.

"Burt is someone who we have identified in the last 12 months as someone who could have an impact at international level.

"He performed well in the recent one day game against Western Australia and we think he will be well suited to Indian conditions."

Australian captain Ricky Ponting said it was disheartening to see the dressing room turn into a casualty ward.

"It's disappointing to see these guys go down, because you know how much they want to play and be a part of the series, and do the best they can to win games and win series," he said on Wednesday.

"So it's more disappointing for them more so than anything, I'm sure everyone who's returned back home would much rather be here with the series as it is at the moment, but we've got what we've got.

Ponting noted that the Australians' fierce desire to win every series they played in had perhaps caused problems as the schedule became ever more taxing this year, as players redoubled their efforts for each game despite the lack of adequate rest.

"We want to win this series and that's, unfortunately for us, probably a mentality for every series or game we go into and sometimes that can cost us a little bit I think," he said.

""How proud we are in our performances and results can sometimes cost us in the long run.

"Certainly for me every game I play with these guys I want to be able to win but sometimes that means pushing guys a little bit too hard and we have some of these injuries come along.

"First and foremost you want to continue to try and put our best team on the park from what we've got available and try and win the series, but have one eye on what's happening in a couple of weeks after we arrive back home as well."

Given the number of players either out of action or carrying niggles, Ponting said an Australia success over India would rank as one of the more "amazing" limited overs performances he had been a part of.

The series is tied at 2-2 with three to play.

"If you consider everything that's happened to us over the last couple of weeks it would be an amazing effort if this group of players were good enough to get over the line," he said.

Squads

INDIA: MS Dhoni (capt), Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag, Gautam Gambhir, Yuvraj Singh, Dinesh Karthik, Suresh Raina, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Harbhajan Singh, Ashish Nehra, Munaf Patel, Sudeep Tyagi, Praveen Kumar, Ishant Sharma, Amit Mishra.

AUSTRALIA: Ricky Ponting (capt), Shaun Marsh, Shane Watson, Michael Hussey, Adam Voges, Cameron White, Graham Manou, Mitchell Johnson, Nathan Hauritz, Clint McKay, Jon Holland, Ben Hilfenhaus, Doug Bollinger.