Brett Lee's pace assault left the West Indies in tatters with Australia winning the first Test by 379 runs at the Gabba with four sessions to spare.

A fired-up Lee took a career-best 5-30 after skipper Ricky Ponting convinced him to concentrate on just bowling fast rather than slowing to focus on line and length.

Australia declared on its overnight score of 2-283, setting the West Indies what would have been a world record tally of 509 to win.

Playing his first Test for two years, left-arm inswing bowler Nathan Bracken also claimed a personal best of 4-48 including two wickets in two balls.

It was the 11th-biggest win by runs margin in Test history.

A rare low point for Australia in the match was Saturday's shoulder injury to all-rounder Shane Watson, who was forced to leave the field for treatment and is in doubt for the second Test starting on November 17 in Hobart.

Michael Clarke (5) and Simon Katich (0) failed again with the bat after Clarke (39 and 5) and Katich (0 and 2) both flopped in the Test against the World XI at the SCG last month.

"I love having both of those guys in the side and I'm sure they'll bounce back and score some runs pretty soon," Ponting said.

"He (Katich) is probably under a little bit of pressure (after averaging only 27.55 in the Ashes series) but good sides carry those sorts of players through.

"If the other guys can rally around and do the job as we have done in this game, we'll hope that Simon comes good in the next game.

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