"Australian teams historically have been able to bounce back," captain Ricky Ponting told a news conference. "If we lose a game or have things not go our way we can turn things around pretty quickly. That's what our whole focus will be now. We played some great cricket in Melbourne, we played some great cricket in Sydney. We've let ourselves down a little bit in this game but it's about how we bounce back from that now."

Ponting said the visitors deserved to win the third Test in Perth and keep alive their hopes of squaring the series 2-2 in Adelaide but warned Australia would learn from their errors.

He said the home team were not at their best at the WACA, misjuding the pace of the pitch and making a string of fundamental mistakes.

"It was a tough four days, India deserved to win the game the way they did. They outplayed us for the majority of the game," said Ponting.

CRITICAL MOMENTS

"A lot of our skills have let us down more than anything this week. I thought our preparation was great and it was just little critical moments in this match we faltered and it's been a long time since we've done that."

Saturday's defeat was Australia's first in a Test for nearly two and a half years and their first at home since 2003.

It also ruined their chances of setting a world record of 17 consecutive Test victories.

"Sixteen matches in a row is a great achievement, it would have been great to win one more but we haven't been good enough in this game," said Ponting.

"The run was always going to come to an end at some stage, we just haven't played a brand of cricket that has been good enough to win this match."

Ponting said he was not surprised at how strongly India rebounded from the disappointment of losing the first two Tests and said he was expecting his side to do the same in Adelaide.