England to Pakistan: Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum bring joy back to Test cricket

Go to work, garden, learn whamola. You get the idea.

For a long time, the only thing less enjoyable than playing for the team 'England Test was watching them.

Not so much to close the curtains if they were playing in the garden, but to ask the police to escort them out and issue a restraining order so they can never set foot in the same county again.

The transformation under Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum is absolute not only in terms of results - nine wins from 10 Tests capped by a historic 3-0 victory in Pakistan - but the restoration of joy to all aspects of the Test of English cricket.

New Zealander McCullum is a man who always looks like he's having a good time , but Stokes knows what it's like to wrestle er - it's only been 14 months since he ended a hiatus from th e game.

“Very early this summer I tried to portray to guys that we were in the entertainment business,” Stokes said.

"Go out and entertain the people watching. Try to make each day of a test as entertaining and watchable as possible. Enjoy the moment."

All of this is a perfectly reasonable goal, but much harder to put into practice.

Pro athletes are often plagued with self-doubt. It's a rare career where you know it's there's always someone out there looking to pinch your spot on the squad or team, and basically take your job.

Keith Miller, all-rounder in Don Bradman's Invincibles and WWII pilot, once said the pressure was a Messerschmitt chasing you - "playing cricket is not not".

The pressure, however, can be overwhelming for a cricketer and often comes from the interior.

It's So perhaps the removal of the pressure that is key to the success of the Stokes-McCullum diet.

After losing the round in three days to South Africa in the first test at Lord's, England's only defeat under the Ben-Baz axis, Stokes returned to the dressing room, I don't know what to say .

"Guys were a bit depressed," he recalls. "The first thing I said was 'guys, raise your hand if you want to play golf'.

"They were looking at each other. I will never forget the relief on their faces, because they wondered what it would be like after we had been beaten so badly. It lifted the weight off the shoulders."

Pressure removed, pleasure added.

Training can include a penalty shootout or a game where a helmeted coach tries to direct a tennis ball falling from orbit . is often the soundtrack of a session on the net.

The day before the final test in Karachi, the team put together a six-hit game, North vs. South, then Stokes vs. McCullum.The coach's win meant the captain had to serve Harry Brook dinner that night.

In the build-up to the Pakistan series, England went to...