“I think we’ve certainly improved as a team.” – Michael Clarke

Michael Clarke, please explain.

Australia had just suffered a shocking loss and the Australian captain was talking arrogant baloney.

Don’t try to sell us a con. We’re not that stupid.

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When you’ve been beaten by 221 runs by the No.6 Test side in the world, just come out, be honest and compliment the opposition.

This was just about Australia’s worst loss since the Second World War.

It is not as though Australia was up against one of the great West Indies sides. Photo: Getty

OK, there might have been margins that look worse on paper, such as the thumping at Lord’s in 2013, or the rout against the West Indies in Perth in 1984.

But look at the names in the opposition column (Anderson, Broad and Swann at Lord’s; Holding, Marshall, Garner and Walsh in Perth) and those results are put in some perspective.

By contrast, Pakistan’s was the most inexperienced attack I have ever seen in Test cricket.

This was a side cobbled together to cover for the losses of frontliners Saeed Ajmal (chucking) and Junaid Khan (injury).

The five bowlers who represented Pakistan in this match had taken a combined total of 57 wickets between them from an aggregate of 44 Tests.

Take out Mohammad Hafeez, who is essentially a top-order batsman and part-time off-spinner, and that comes back to an amazing 22 wickets from eight matches.

Yet this side trounced an Australian team with pretensions to being the world’s No.1.

The Australians are earning more than $10 million a year between them. The Pakistanis would be lucky to be making a total $750,000.

Nathan Lyon’s bowling is a mystery, but not necessarily in a good way. Photo: Getty

Yet we try to cover up our pathetic performance by falling back on the old chestnut that we don’t play well on slow wickets.

That is no longer good enough.

We are talking about highly-paid professionals who knew where they were heading, the conditions that awaited them and had all the support and coaching that any player could wish for.

With some exceptions, the batsmen just did not spend enough time at the crease, and were shown up by Mitchell Johnson’s second-innings effort.

Alex Doolan, picked to tour South Africa because of his strength against quick bowling, cannot play spin. Chris Rogers also struggles against spin, although he acquitted himself reasonably well.

The bowling was even worse.

Nathan Lyon and Steve O’Keefe totally let us down.

Lyon is a mystery. He’s got a fine record, but he doesn’t seem to get the top-order batsmen out or get wickets when the conditions suit him most.

Why couldn’t a player of his experience at least tie the batsmen down?

Yasir Shah doing his best Abdul Qadir impersonation. Photo: Getty

It was telling that Lyon went for four runs an over, yet the raw Pakistani spinners went for half that.

The selectors made a massive mistake by asking Mitchell Marsh to make his debut in Dubai.

Marsh cut his teeth on hard Perth wickets and T20. He is a potential superstar of Australian cricket, but don’t ask him to make a Test debut in these dry, dusty conditions.

Glenn Maxwell should always have played ahead of him as part of a three-pronged spin attack and now must play in the second Test starting on Thursday.

It will look silly to drop Marsh after one match, but the selectors have left themselves no choice.

Maxwell has got the talent to adapt to different conditions and he bowls off-spin. He’s got a tremendous future in the Test arena and I think he will out-bowl Lyon.

As for the batting, possible replacement Phil Hughes is a terrible player of spin, so I would keep Doolan in the side for now.

Make no mistake. This was an amazing effort from Pakistan, a side short on players, resources and without even a home base.

Yasir Shah, a clone of the great Pakistani leg-spinner Abdul Qadir, is particularly exciting. What a magnificent debut: 7-116.

And Younis Khan was superb with a century in each innings. He was at the forefront of brilliant batting against Mitchell Johnson – the pick of the Australian bowlers on day one – setting up the victory.

In the meantime, Australia would do well to shut its trap and get down to some hard work.

The only spin they should engage in is on the field.