Sunderland pair Jon McLaughlin and Lewis Morgan were unused substitutes as Scotland suffered one of their most embarrassing defeats.
Two goals in the opening 10 minutes sent them on their way to a 3-0 defeat in Kazakhstan.
Scott Bain was chosen in goal ahead of McLaughlin following Allan McGregor's international retirement, while on-loan Celtic winger Morgan remained on the bench throughout the humiliating defeat.
A top-two finish in their European Championship qualifying group already looks a slim chance for Scotland after an opening defeat to a team ranked 117th in the world. Kazakhstan had only won three of their previous 40 competitive matches - against Andorra, Latvia and the Faroe Islands.
The opening two goals were particularly painful for Aberdeen midfielder Graeme Shinnie - who was standing in at left-back after Kieran Tierney and Andy Robertson lost fitness battles.
Shinnie, who played left-back earlier in his career, allowed both Yuriy Pertsukh and Yan Vorogovskiy to get in behind him to net.
Scotland's defence, which also featured Sheffield Wednesday's Liam Palmer making his debut at right-back, and Scott McKenna and David Bates in the middle, continued to look susceptible to home attacks and Baktiyor Zainutdinov headed a simple third in the 51st minute.
Alex McLeish's team - who started with Oli McBurnie up front with Oliver Burke and James Forrest either side - had not registered a shot on target by then and they limped to defeat after having a couple of efforts saved just before the hour mark.
While 27,000 home fans celebrated a memorable Kazakh New Year holiday, around 600 Scotland supporters watched in disbelief after travelling about 4,000 miles to see their team reach a new low.
Stand-in captain McGregor admitted that Scotland were second-best throughout the clash in Astana.
He told Sky Sports Football: "We didn't use the ball well enough, we didn't try to get it to the front men quickly and do what we were asked to do, so the players have to put their hands up.
"It's massive frustration. You come away, you want to start the campaign well, but you have to play better than that if you want to gain points.
"We know it's a bad result and we have to go again. We have another game in a few days to make steps to put it right.
"If we get a good result in the next game, then we can finish on that positive but we know that we have to do better than that. There's not a lot we can say apart from that we didn't do our jobs."
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