Captain Ricky Ponting says his all-conquering world champions have taken one-day cricket to a new level.

Michael Bevan argues that Australia's World Cup-winning squad could be the greatest of all time after a 125-run humbling of India in the final described by Brett Lee, Darren Lehmann and Matthew Hayden as perfect.

But coach John Buchanan - never satisfied - believes there's still room for improvement.

It's hard to imagine how Australia could have done it any better than this.

First they came into the tournament without injured all-rounder Shane Watson and with Lehmann serving a ban for racial vilification.

There were quandaries over those who did travel, with many sniping at the inclusion of the under-performing Andrew Symonds.

Then the Aussies had to cope with the moral and political pressure surrounding playing in Zimbabwe.

As if that wasn't enough they lost the world's best legspinner to the shame of a positive drug test.

As the Shane Warne scandal simmered away back home, Australia had to fly in new recruits for both Warne and strike bowler Jason Gillespie, who was rubbed out of the Cup with injury.

But Ponting's men kept beating - no, flogging - anyone who stepped out against them.

"We took things to a new level today," said Ponting.

"I suppose you've got to look at the game today and realise that India are a very good side and we've beaten them pretty comprehensively and I think that in itself says we're a fair way ahead of what was the second best side in the World Cup.

"The 17th straight win doesn't mean much to us ... what does mean a lot to us is the standards that we set for our side. They are very high and we've reached and almost set higher standards today."

Ordered to bat on a troublesome pitch juiced up by overnight rain, Australia made its highest one-day total of 2-359.

Ponting's unbeaten 140 from 128 balls was the biggest in a World Cup final while his unbroken 234-run partnership with Damien Martyn was the largest for Australia for any wicket.

India fell 125 runs short.

"The enjoyable thing for me is being part of a team that could well be the best one-day team in history," Bevan said.

"I think we've probably not done any different than the 1999 team except we've done it over a longer period, which is pretty much a gauge."

Australian won the World Cup with ten straight victories, taking its record winning stretch to 17 games.

"Hopefully, if we keep doing what we're doing in two or three years time then we've set a new standard and you can claim to be that (the greatest)," said Bevan.

"Hopefully it will be the starting point. I suppose not many other teams have achieved what we've achieved.

"You definitely feel the presence or the aura of being a part of a side like this."

Ever the perfectionist, Buchanan said there was "no question" the world champions could continue raising the bar.

"I don't subscribe to the fact that we've taken the game to a totally new level," he said.

"I think we could look at every part of our game and say, 'We could improve that.'

"There's scope to improve every part of our game, even tactically, ways and means of looking at opposition, ways and means of doing that differently.

"If we were quite happy to sit back and say, 'Well, now we've won back-to-back one-day championships' then we're doing ourselves a disservice, Australian cricket and world cricket a disservice. It's really upon ourselves to make sure that we look at our game and work out how we can do that.

"It's our role to keep trying to extend that so-called gap and hope that other teams want to follow us."

Hayden said Australia could field another ten players deserving of the respect of the current squad. Lee estimated 15.

"It's a very complete cricketing nation," said Hayden.

"We are the envy of all the world in terms of our cricketing performance at the moment."

Lehmann and Lee both called the performance "perfect".

"There have been times when we've done well with the bat, done well with the ball and there have been times when we've done well in the field, but I think today was the perfect match," said lee.

"There are about 15 guys at home who could play for Australia right now so I think the depth that Australian cricket has got is fantastic."

Australia's next one-day tournament is a seven-match series against the West Indies in May.

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