All-rounder Andrew Symonds will return to the Australian Test side for the opening 3 Mobile Test against New Zealand at the Gabba beginning on Thursday.
Australian captain Ricky Ponting made the announcement on Wednesday, leaving spinner Jason Krejza and all-rounder Shane Watson locked in a battle for the final spot in the starting XI.
Ponting and chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch are yet to make a decision on who will carry the drinks, suggesting the weather and final condition of the pitch will impact the verdict.
"We'll wait and see what happens this afternoon and tonight, I believe there's a fair bit more rain around which is forecasted this afternoon, so we'll wait until tomorrow morning before we finalise what the starting XI will be," he said.
Ponting admitted that whoever is left on the sidelines has a right to feel aggrieved after their fine efforts in the VB Tour of India.
"Absolutely, it'll be desperately unlucky for whoever misses out there, Krazy has taken 12 wickets in the last Test match he played and at different times during the Indian series Shane Watson was probably our best bowler."
Ponting said Symonds' ability as a player meant that he demanded selection after spending months away from the national side following his dismissal from the Top End ODI series.
"A tough decision had to be made there, obviously with Symmo, when he was deemed to be fit and ready to go, I thought it was important that we got him back into our team."
"Being a senior member of our team and being someone who was a very successful member of our team before he went out of it, it almost becomes like an injury-type replacement."
Symonds has had indifferent form in the first class arena this season, registering a high score of 43 and an average of 13.33 from his three matches for the Bulls, but Ponting was not concerned.
"He's doing a lot of things right inside on the (bowling) machine…if you look at some of the venues that he's played his couple of games for Queensland, they've been wickets where all teams have struggled to make 150 on."
"So it's a little bit hard to read too much into his form, but he's a big game sort of player and his record for Australia leading up to him being left out of the side was very good."
After days on end of inclement weather, sunshine was finally out in force in Brisbane today and the covers were able to come off, revealing an expectedly green Gabba wicket.
Ponting believed the pitch would play well, provided the showers stayed away.
"It's encouraging at the moment to see a lot of sun out there and speaking to (curator) Kev Mitchell, he was reasonably happy with what's come up, he's actually a little bit surprised at how hard it is already which is a good sign."
"Hopefully we get a whole day of sun today and some good sun in the morning and the wicket probably won't be as bad as we all expected."
"Right at the moment you'd probably think now it's going to play more like a day one Sheffield Shield wicket more than a day one Test wicket that we've been use to playing on for the last ten years."
Australia will go into Thursday's match as staunch favourites and while he was concerned about the conditions, Ponting anticipated his side would bounce back after a 2-0 Test series loss to India.
"I'd expect us to win the series, whether that's 2-0 or 1-0, I'd expect us to win, I have a lot of confidence in this group."
"Sure, we're smack bang in the middle of a rebuilding phase, and a lot of our players are still developing and working out ways to be successful at Test level."
"It's still an exciting time for me as a captain to see some of these younger guys coming on and I know it's a great challenge that lies ahead for the whole team to try and forge an identity for itself."