Australian cricket team is to visit Victorian towns affected by the weekend's devastating bushfires on Wednesday.

Initially scheduled to fly straight to Brisbane in preparation for the final Commonwealth Bank Series game at the Gabba, the team announced their detour after the six-wicket win over New Zealand at the Adelaide Oval.

It was Pup's idea

Australia captain Ricky Ponting said Michael Clarke came up with the idea on the morning before their clash with the Black Caps.

"We are going to get on a team coach and go out to Whittlesea and spend a few hours there to try and make things a fraction easier if we can," Ponting said.

"We want to get in and help out wherever we can and do whatever is organised for us there. We don't actually know what we can and can't do yet. We had a really good chat about the events of the last four or five days in Victoria. The coach (Tim Nielsen) started all that off ... talking about that and what sort of impact we could have as a cricket team on some of those tragedies," he added.

Clarke struggled through game four with a sore back and it is unclear whether the right-hander will travel with the team to Victoria.

Oz team focused despite tragedy

Ponting said while the tragedy had played on the minds of his team-mates, he was pleased they were able to stay focused for the must-win clash in Adelaide.

"There are a few guys in our side that are reasonably affected by it at the moment and for them at the moment it's incredibly difficult," he said.

"We got through that, we got our thought processes away from those people obviously and back onto playing good cricket and full credit to the guys, we had a really hard-fought win," the skipper added.

During game four, 12th man Peter Siddle carried more than the drinks with the fast bowler taking his turn to collect donations for the Commonwealth Bank Series Bushfire Appeal.

White's family lost friends in the bushfire

Siddle is from Victoria while fellow Bushranger Cameron White said his family had lost friends in the fires.

Before the game the Australian team donated their match fees to the Commonwealth Bank Series Bushfire Appeal while all proceeds from the Adelaide Oval were also added to the cause.

Overall the national appeal raised more than 6 million Australian dollars (£2.72million) in a day for people affected by the natural disaster.

"Just to look up on the scoreboard a couple of times, on a couple of occasions to see the amount of money raised by the appeal today was quite staggering," Ponting said.

Australia will fly to Brisbane after their detour to Melbourne.