AUSTRALIAN vice-captain Mitchell Marsh isn’t worried his side haven’t faced any frontline spinners in the only practice match before the first Test against Pakistan in Dubai.

The Australians have piled up the runs in the warm-up game, with Marsh himself plundering 162 against a Pakistan A attack lacking a proven specialist spinner.

But they are set to face a different challenge in the form of dangerous legspinner Yasir Shah in the Test starting on Sunday.

“’We’ve had a few leggies come across to train with us the last couple of weeks so we’ve faced plenty of leg spin and I’m sure we’ll be ready to go,” Marsh said.

“We’ve prepared really well for this tour, so if we got to this practice game and we needed to face spin, we probably would be in a bit of trouble.”

Renowned big hitter Marsh, who didn’t strike a six in his long innings in Dubai, said things he had worked on with his batting during the winter were bearing fruit.

“There’s certain elements of my game that have got better and it’s nice to put them in place in the middle,” Marsh said.

“I certainly worked hard on having softer hands playing spin in these conditions.

“It’s just practice, playing the ball later and being really strong in my defence.”

Travis Head has also been among the runs in Dubai and Marsh felt the South Australian batsman was ready for a Test debut.

“He’s in good form. He looks in really good touch,” Marsh said.

“He’s proven over the last couple of years that he can score big runs for South Australia. He’s ready to go.”

Marsh added 207 with his elder brother Shaun, who scored 94, but said there hadn’t been a lot of talk between them.

“It’s always nice to have him out there. He’s a very calming influence on me out in the middle,’ Marsh said.

“Shaun is a man of few words, so we keep it pretty simple out there.”

Marsh was hoping talk about team culture would gradually reduce, as Australia look to rebuild their reputation in the aftermath of the ball-tampering scandal in South Africa earlier this year.

“Right now we’ve got a great bunch of people here, a great bunch of young guys who are striving to get better every day,” he said.

“We want to work hard and we want to live by certain values as Australian cricketers and make Australians proud.

“I think if we do that the word culture hopefully won’t be mentioned as much.”

He said batsman Matthew Renshaw was getting better and seemed in good spirits after being struck on the helmet while fielding at short leg on Sunday.