Watch all 10 Australian wickets to fall

The message, carried out loud and clear on tabla drums out of Sri Lanka reaching as far east as Bangladesh and west to the Emirates of the gulf country, is that Australia has no idea how to win at Test cricket when required to play in Asia.

This is not a new tune.

Raw vision: Sri Lanka's players celebrate in Colombo

It’s been playing on loop, save for the occasional break in transmission, ever since Ian Johnson led an Australian squad on their first Test visit to the subcontinent en route home from England in 1956, where they were promptly rolled over in the sole match on Karachi’s matting by Pakistan.

Which had only stood as an independent nation for less than a decade, and was the junior member of the then Imperial Cricket Council.

In the 60 years since then, Australia has been an increasingly frequent guest on the subcontinent as Asia has become established as the commercial and spiritual heart of the broadening cricket world, perhaps because of their record of winning less than half of the Test campaigns it has fought.

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Everyone likes to host a guest who isn’t demanding and leaves a nice sparkly gift on departure.

Especially in light of recent history that shows a majority of Australia’s series wins in Asian countries came before the dawn of the 21st Century, and the most recent was the previous visit to Sri Lanka in 2011.

Australia lose 5-23 after the lunch break

That record might be worse if the planned tour to Bangladesh with a revised squad in the wake of last year’s Ashes defeat wasn’t postponed amid security concerns.

And it’s easy to understand why Bangladesh keep pushing to have that fixture re-scheduled, and even Test aspirants Afghanistan will be keen to roll out the red kilim in Kabul should their ascension to an expanded Test roster be formalised.

But in this era of globalisation, of jet travel, and of homogeneity that has broadened experiences and lessened culture shock, Australia’s elite cricketers appear to find adapting to the uniqueness that is Asia even more alien than did Johnson’s pioneer troupe of six decades earlier.

In the wake of his team’s thumping 163-run loss in Colombo today, a defeat that came at a clip as the world’s top-ranked team saw all 10 batsmen dismissed for a Trent Bridge-esque 83 runs in less than 23 overs, captain Steve Smith fronted the post-match media bereft of answers.

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Like so many of his batters over the previous three weeks who might as well have been trying to solve the cryptic crossword in the Sinhala newspapers as decipher spin bowling on dry pitches, Smith simply had to concede he was out of words to explain what had happened.

How the team that began the three-match series by taking possession of the glittering ICC mace as the best Test outfit in the world had ended it amid the sort of freefall into failure that is often seen in under-12 teams scared rigid by a strapping adolescent fast bowler.

"It’s a hard one to grasp really," Smith said, appearing years younger than his scarcely advanced 27, having dragged himself from a euphoric on-field trophy presentation witnessed by a crowd that had swelled to around 10,000 directly to the inquisition room.

What we're doing isn't working: Smith

"It’s been a very tough series again, that is our third straight whitewash loss in the subcontinent (after their 2-0 defeat to Pakistan in the UAE in 2014 and a 4-0 drubbing in India a year earlier).

"What we are doing isn’t working.

"Batters aren’t adapting to the conditions, spin bowlers aren’t adapting to the conditions.

"I can’t fault our quicks, I thought they did a great job, particularly Mitchell Starc, but our batters and spinners are the ones who have to step up and we haven’t been able to do that.

"There’s not too many positives.

"We’ve been totally outplayed. Our plans didn’t work."

It’s difficult not to feel sympathy for Smith, charged with leading a team that is stocked with talent but still building its international experience.

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Of his 15-man touring party, only three members (Nathan Lyon, Usman Khawaja and Shaun Marsh) had played Test cricket on the tropical island in the past, and of those Lyon was the only one to find himself in the starting XI for all three Tests.

As noted by his most capped predecessor Allan Border who, as he did at Trent Bridge last year when Australia were humbled for 60 in typically English conditions, watched the collapse in Colombo from the sidelines, this is the latest in a long run of epic failures.

"This has been going on for 35 years,” Border said in his role as an expert commentator for host broadcaster Ten Sports.

"We've had the odd bright moment under Adam Gilchrist and Ricky Ponting (in India 2004) and under Stephen Waugh (there in 2001).

"We've had some good moments, but they've been few and far between."

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Any review of the team’s preparation, application, execution and humiliation against an opponent that recorded more Test wins over Australia in the course of a month than they had in the preceding 33 years can only deliver one justifiable finding.

That the top-ranked, best-resourced, meticulously prepared Test team in the world was simply not able to compete on even terms with a side that is similarly in transition, boasted even fewer players with international experience and faces a constant battle for resources as well as international exposure.

And that arrived home in Sri Lanka not many days prior to the Australians landing there having endured a forgettable Test and ODI tour to England that netted them no wins but many vocal critics.

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As Smith identified at series end, as he contemplated the handing over of the Warne-Muralidaran Trophy for the first time and the loss of the number one ranking before his team had even managed to get the ceremonial mace back to their own country, the seed of this defeat was sown on the second day of the series.

After Sri Lanka were smashed for just 117 inside 40 overs on the opening day of the first Test at Pallekele.

Only once since the end of the 19th Century has Australia dismissed a Test team for a lesser total but ended up beaten – on a dodgy deck at Mumbai’s Wankhede Stadium against an Indian team that in 2004 included Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag, Laxman, Kumble and Harbhajan Singh.

Yet Australia let slip not just a huge advantage in the match when they managed to post a first innings lead of just 86, but surrendered momentum to the home side that they were never able to arrest.

That paradigm shift was completed the following day when 21-year-old Kusal Mendis, in the infancy of a Test career that glitters bright, flayed a shocked Australian bowling attack for a series-high individual score that filled his team with confidence and the tourists with frustration and doubt.

A pivotal moment that Smith’s rival captain Angelo Mathews nominated as the one that effectively set up Sri Lanka’s first ever whitewash series win against Australia, and a scoreline that lifted their total Test victories over Test cricket’s benchmark of recent generations from one to four.

"That first innings of the series did hurt us,” Smith conceded today.

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"Since then, we haven’t really fought our way back.

"It’s been difficult, we’ve batted second in every game we’ve played and you’re always behind the game because you know that having to bat last in these conditions is always tough."

But justifiably, given the vast disparity in profile, in wealth, in experience and in expectations between the rival teams, Mathews did not believe it was Australia’s unsolvable issues with playing cricket in Asia that was the reason behind a series win that will be celebrated long and lovingly across the island.

And in the far-flung parts of the Sri Lankan diaspora where cricket is keenly followed.

The captain who came into this campaign carrying the same burden of confusion and criticism that has been picked up by Smith, but who departs it a national hero, quite rightly points out that his players simply played better, for longer, and when it most mattered.

"Yeah, I’ve been hearing these things, that the Australians haven’t played well in Asia and about the wickets and all," Mathews said with an impossible-to-shift smile when asked at game’s end if his opponents’ historic fallibility on the subcontinent gave him hope where none should exist.

"But I think we, as a team, have played better cricket than the Australians.

"Regardless of them having a bad record in Asia, they are still the number one team and to beat them it has to be a fantastic effort.

The feeling is unbelievable: Mathews

"We had to fight really hard, they gave us a real fight in the last Test match.

"Commiserations to the Australians but I think they’re going to come back hard at us in the one-dayers."

That half shot at redemption begins with the first of five 50-over internationals, to be played at Colombo’s Premadasa Stadium where Australia has won just six of 15 ODIs played there since 1992, on Sunday.

And might be the first proving ground for a new fleet of Australian players capable of conquering Asia.