Australia captain Michael Clarke has called for a thorough debrief of the one-day team's recent performances after they took another thumping against England for an embarrassing 4-0 series loss.

England won the fifth and final one-day international under the Manchester floodlights for their 10th straight one-day win.

It's Australia's worst one-day international series defeat in 40 years.

Clarke's side may now lose their No.1 world ranking with England facing South Africa in a one-day series from next month.

The Australians had just one batsman, George Bailey, featuring in the top six run-scorers in the series, while England's No.7 batsman was never required.

"We need to play better cricket," Clarke told reporters after the match.

"We need to sit down as a team and have a look at our performances over the last 12 months and areas we need to get better.

"It certainly wasn't preparation. I thought our training was outstanding and we played some really good cricket in the couple of warm-up games but we have no excuses.

"Obviously all the boys would be disappointed in the changing room once again after another loss.

"We certainly didn't come here hoping to lose, that's for sure. We wanted to win and play well throughout this series.

"A lot of credit needs to go to England. They've outplayed us in all four matches, they've been very consistent, their bowlers have bowled with good patience and discipline and their batters have made runs.

"We haven't done both. We didn't have anybody make a big score as a batter, we lost a lot of early wickets throughout the series and we didn't execute our skills as well as you need to."

Clarke did try to search for crumbs of comfort from the wreckage of the series loss. He acknowledges that they will have learned much more about the abilities and temperaments of the newcomers to the group.

"It's been good to have a look at guys, no doubt," Clarke added.

"It's good to give them a taste of international cricket.

"I know it's a different format but for me I guess I got my opportunity in test cricket through the one-day form.

"Any chance you get to play for Australia in one-day cricket you're pushing for Test selection I guess."

- AAP