AUSTRALIA beware. Operation Dead Deck is coming your way big time.

Yesterday it was on the menu in Dubai. Later this week it will be force-fed in Abu Dhabi.

Next May in the West Indies. Next July in England.

The formula of how to pull of the cape off fast bowling super man Mitchell Johnson has been carved in the desert sands and will now be transported around the world.

It was always worth a try — and, this time at least, it worked.

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It’s a simple recipe — just don’t add water.

All you do is produce a deck which looks like a collection of muesli slices lined up beside each other, stop watering it a few days out, make it as dry and lifeless as a diet biscuit and watch the rampaging superhero becoming flesh and blood again.

media_camera Blunted: Mitch Johnson reacts while bowling in the First Test in Dubai

You would barely know it from his match figures of 3-73 from 43 overs but Johnson, while not flawless, was excellent in the first Test against Pakistan.

His best work in the first innings lost nothing in comparison to his bellringing spells against England during the last Australian summer.

There were patches when he hit players in the fingers, toes and ribs when all they were trying to do was keep him at bay.

That’s some effort on a deck specifically designed to reduce his rating from menacing to manageable.

But just as a heavy weight will slow down the strongest racehorse, dead decks plane the volcanic edge off the greatest of fast bowlers.

When Australia had Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath at their peaks it did the heads in of rival groundsman who didn’t know what sort of pitch to prepare.

media_camera Chris Rogers of Australia is bowled by Imran Khan in Dubai.

Toss up a green top and McGrath would often have you in the electric chair by lunch on day one.

Make it too dry and Warne would choke you to death on days three, four and — if you got there — five.

But with Johnson standing out from his band mates as much as Paul McCartney once did with Wings, these days it’s a no-brainer.

By producing a deck drier than a camel’s cough you not only reduce the impact of Johnson but even get a tasty late-match bonus if your spinners are anywhere near top-line.

With newcomer Steve O’Keefe lacking bite and Nathan Lyon suddenly struggling and surprisingly ineffective in a region tipped to be his nirvana, you simply back your batsmen to handle them and your spinners to out-bowl them.

media_camera Pakistani bowler Yasih Shah bowls on the fifth day of the First Test against Australia in Dubai.

Australia may have the best fast bowler in the world in Johnson and its most intimidating batsman in David Warner but the clear message from Dubai is that until Australia unearths a champion leg-spinner it will never feel totally comfortable in its own skin.

History tells us they come along at the rate of one every 25 years so don’t hold your breath.

Australia has two fundamental issues with spin bowling — it struggles to bowl it and play it.

But we cannot whinge. We asked for it.

With Adelaide now a drop-in deck and Sydney much greener than it was for decades Australia no longer has a spinning deck and it is a major shortcoming.

Australia has imported soil from India for a custom made practice pitch in Brisbane but practising at Albion with harness horses rushing around in the distance is one thing, handling balls kicking like cobras out of rough in is a Test match with a pack of vultures around you is quite another.

Australia’s young spinners want for nothing.

At the luxuriant National Cricket Centre in Brisbane there are different pitches made for them and machines which measure things like how many times the ball rotates before it gets to the batsman.

Compare that to the rise of Pakistan’s high class leg-spinner Yasih Shah who troubled Australia in both Test innings.

He was raised in a volatile part of the country, the dangerous northwest frontier, where there was barely a cricket ground.

Yet he taught himself the craft after watching Shane Warne and toiled away on humble wages for more than a decade before he got his Test debut.

In a world full of pampered stars his story is a vivid reminder that the hard way is often the best way.