Captain Michael Clarke was pleased to right the wrongs of Australia's inadequacies in January with a resounding triumph over the West Indies in Friday's ODI series opener.

Resigned to a record-low 74 all out by Sri Lanka in Brisbane three weeks ago, the first day of February saw the Australians exact a similar fate on the Windies.

Seamer Mitchell Starc romped to career-best figures of five for 20, with the tourists resigned to a paltry 70 all out - their third lowest ODI total. Visiting captain Darren Sammy, whose unexpected choice to bat first on a green pitch primed for swing bowling, was one of only three batsman to reach double figures.

All-rounder Glenn Maxwell later clubbed a quickfire century, as his promotion to the top of the order ensured a successful pursuit of a very modest target inside 10 overs. His unbeaten 51 spanned just 35 balls, and featured nine boundaries and a couple of sixes.

"It is nice to be on the other side after what happened in Brisbane. I think this was a very nice Test match wicket and that was the reason we would have wanted to bowl first anyway," said Clarke.

"Mitchell Johnson is the only other bowler I have seen do what Starc did here. It was the total which prompted us to send Maxwell up the order. If Maxwell bats like this, he can certainly have the opening berth every game, and it is going to be a better batting wicket on Sunday for the second match."

Left-armer Starc's haul bettered the five for 52 achieved against Pakistan in Sharjah last year, and earned him the Man-of-the-Match award. Right-armer Clint McKay and debutant James Faulkner shared the other five wickets, while Johnson went without breakthrough across five economical overs.

"It is nice when the ball swings. It's nice when you get rhythm like that. If you had put enough ball in the right areas, the pitch had enough to help the bowlers," added Starc.

Defeated skipper Sammy conceded his choice at the toss backfired, compounded by the early dismissal of the dangerous Chris Gayle and a third-ball duck for the veteran Ramnaresh Sarwan.

"They hit us hard, and now we need to hit them hard in the next game. Hopefully it was just a one-off. The team backed itself to bat first. But we fell to seam and swing. We need to come back strong and hard in two days time," concluded Sammy.