Mitchell Johnson says Australia’s fielders like to throw the ball into the turf during Test matches to help accelerate wear and tear and make reverse swing more likely to occur.

However Johnson felt that method wasn’t required for day one of the first Test against Pakistan in Dubai on Wednesday, as the ball was wearing rapidly anyway on a dry and lifeless pitch.

Johnson claimed 3-22 off 20 overs as Pakistan took the honours on day one, reaching 4-219 at stumps.

“It’s always something that gets brought up in conversation in these conditions when there’s not much to offer,” Johnson said.

“We spoke about it in the tour game (in Sharjah last week) to try and get it to reverse there.

“When we turned up this morning to see the wicket the way it was, we knew we were a chance to get it to go.

“We didn’t really get the opportunity to throw the ball into the side wickets like you can sometimes.

“The ball naturally just roughed up. It happened to work for us today and it’ll just keep continuing on for their bowlers as well.”

Johnson says when he bowls he’s trying to hit the rough side of the ball on the pitch to speed up the reverse-swing process.

“So I was just doing that as much as I could after the ball stopped swinging,” he said.

“It just seemed to go (reverse).

“I came around the wicket and bowled a ball and that was the one Chris Rogers put down (with the score on 2-47 in the 27th over).

“That is the first time I thought it was really starting to go.

“We will see that through the next innings as well.

“It is a good thing to have, normal swing early on and to have it reverse when the ball is still hard is perfect.

“Fingers crossed we can do that with this ball.”