Australia captain Michael Clarke was relieved to get his side's campaign back on track after they recorded the largest ever World Cup victory with a 275-run triumph over Afghanistan.

After a washout against Bangladesh and a narrow one-wicket loss to New Zealand, Australia were in danger of becoming the forgotten side of this year's event, but they returned in emphatic, record-breaking style at the WACA.

David Warner was the star with the bat, striking a memorable 178, before Glenn Maxwell provided some late fireworks to push the score up to 417 for six - the highest ever total at a World Cup and Australia's second highest in one-day international cricket.

The pace of Mitchell Johnson proved to be too much for Afghanistan, taking four for 22 to dismiss the Associate nation for just 142, and Clarke told a post-match press conference he was impressed with the way his side bounced back from defeat.

"It's nice to turn our form around after New Zealand," he said.

"Especially with the bat I thought the boys played really well to make 400 - the highest World Cup score ever - that's very satisfying and really pleasing after the way we batted against New Zealand and obviously we had some outstanding individual performances.

"Davey Warner obviously he led the way with that and Steve Smith played well around that. Glenn Maxwell too, I thought they played really well to get that record and once again we came out to bowl and field really well so I think that part of our game is pretty consistent."

He added: "We have to continue to bowl and field the way we are and it was a real positive to turn things around with the bat so quickly."

Warner, who looked set to become the second batsman at the tournament to reach 200 after Chris Gayle before holing out in the 38th over, dismissed any disappointment at falling short of the milestone, which would have been the first by an Australian in a World Cup.

"I'm not disappointed at all," Warner explained.

"I went out there to score some runs and I managed to do that once the concrete shoes came off. It was good to get a great total on the board and obviously the bowlers did their job at the end there."

After the game, Afghanistan captain Mohammed Nabi said: "It was a good experience, they play very well especially in their batting. Warner and Smith played well before Maxwell, their bowlers are the fastest we have faced and they did very well.

"We will take the experience from this into our next matches."