Australia scouts expect reverse swing to play a bigger role than spin when Cardiff hosts its first Test to open the Ashes.

Cooley and Bernard travelled to Cardiff from Worcester a day ahead of the Australian squad and gathered information from the groundsman, Keith Exton, and Glamorgan's South Australian recruit Mark Cosgrove.

Advantage Lee?

They reported that the conditions should closely resemble the tour game at Worcester, where the pitch was slow and Brett Lee summoned dangerous reverse swing - as early as the 33rd over - to collect seven wickets for the match.

Any turn is expected to be slow, suggesting that a fourth seamer, Stuart Clark, may be preferred to specialist spinner Nathan Hauritz.

"All the information we're getting is that Cardiff will be similar to here. The ball gets chopped up a bit because the surface is abrasive, so if you can get (reverse swing) going early it will certainly help," Australian coach Tim Nielsen was quoted as saying in the newspaper.

Swing it the reverse way

"Brett bowled it so well in the first innings, James Anderson does a good job with it for England so both teams, if the ball stops swinging naturally, the idea is to get it going reverse as quickly as you can to take it off the straight. With flat wickets and fast outfields you need something happening, otherwise the batsmen will get runs. I think it will play a huge part."

This might be the reason behind Mitchell Johnson bowling with a scrambled seam in the second innings of the drawn tour game against the England Lions on Saturday. He took the inswinger, that made him such a potent weapon in South Africa, out of the equation but roughed up the ball for Lee to bend one back through the defences of Vikram Solanki.

Hauritz not ruled out

Hauritz managed two wickets for 260 runs in the two tour matches, but Nielsen said the specialist was still in the picture.

"He's improved," he said. "The wicket didn't spin or bounce or offer a lot but he was able to get some rhythm, he changed his pace a bit more and he caused a few more issues out of the rough for the left-handers. Their Test match squad usually has three left-handers to finish their order off and two at the top, so an off spinner would be pretty handy in that regard."