Patience, not aggression, is the solution to Australia’s spin demons, according to Test selector and former leg-spinner Trevor Hohns.

Although coach Darren Lehmann admonished his batsman for being timid in their 221-run loss to Pakistan in Dubai, Hohns said Australia needed to take a leaf out of their rivals’ book.

Pakistan had little trouble coping with off-spinner Nathan Lyon and left-armer Steve O’Keefe as they consistently waited for the loose deliveries in making 454 and 2(dec)-286.

In contrast, Australia were bowled out for 303 and 216 – with David Warner and Steve Smith the only top-order batsmen to look comfortable – in the first Test as Zulfiqar Babar and Yasir Shah took 14 wickets between them.

Hohns absolved Lyon (2-220) and O’Keefe (4-219), who he rated solid, from blame and felt the batters needed to take more time to adjust to the difficult conditions.

“It was rather disappointing,” he said on Wednesday.

“Patience is the key word as we saw when the Pakistani played.

“Pakistan obviously are used to playing spin bowlers and that’s the difference.

“They played them very well and they were very patient.”

Hohns, who played seven Tests in the late 1980s and presided over Australia’s recent golden era as chief selector, said Australian fans would also need to be patient as improvement on spinning tracks would take time.

He praised Cricket Australia’s move last season for more Sheffield Shield matches to sport Test match-like wickets after a decade-long trend of green, seam-friendly result pitches.

Statistics showed that spinners bowled far more overs in 2013-14 than previous seasons, in a benefit to the batsmen as well as slow bowlers.

“They (spinners) need to be bowling more and at some stage have pitches that are helpful to them and that will help our batsmen play against good spin bowling,” Hohns said.

“It’s a vicious cycle.

“We do have some good young spinners coming through and they need some encouragement.”