Brendon McCullum reckons the art of fun is the secret to making Test cricket great again as it competes with the march of the white-ball revolution.
There have been more than 60 English cricketers taking up lucrative T20 deals and plying their trade in overseas leagues this winter and after doing the sums, some have even chosen those leagues over the national side.
And while the financial benefits are clearly at the heart of this debate for many with families to consider, McCullum’s aim is to make playing Test cricket for England so much fun, that the players are falling over themselves to get involved.
That is what a team bonding trip to Queenstown was all about before this two-Test tour of his native New Zealand, and it is why training is increasingly optional for players who know how to get the best out of themselves on the field.
“There’s so many options these days,” said McCullum. “You’ve got to make Test cricket enjoyable not just on the field but off the field too
"Test cricket is hard and travelling the world can be difficult, but it’s meant to be a fun time in your life and you should be able to enjoy it not just on the field but off the field as well. Things that the guys have done over the past week or so will hopefully be memories they can take with them for a long time.
“You try and get those guys to know when they board the plane to head overseas or jump into the car to head down to Lord’s or whatever to join up with the team, they know they’re going to have a great time. The results will hopefully follow. You can’t guarantee that, but what you can do is ensure you put some money in the bank when it comes to experiences and relationships.
“I always felt when I was playing that everything was based around the cricket and sometimes you forgot to enjoy yourself. You have one crack at life, why would you not want to enjoy it? That’s the theory, we’ll see how it works out but it’s worth a crack."
It is a philosophy that skipper Ben Stokes shares as he tries to squeeze every last drop of excitement out of each game, although not the warm up game he is missing. It is how England were able to score more than 500 on the first day of their series in Pakistan as part of an incredible 3-0 win. And it is how England intend to take the Kiwis down once more at home after trying out their philosophy on the Black Caps at the start of last summer to great effect.
"Pakistan was amazing. We banked some experiences which will go with us forever but this is a completely different challenge against a team who have been incredibly formidable in their own conditions over the last five or six years,” he added.
"We're going to have to be pretty sharp, but I’m pretty confident the guys will play the style of cricket we’ve become accustomed to. I don't think we've reached the limit.
"Some characters don't need warm-up games. The bigger the competition, the more they step up. Stokesy has never been a warm-up game kind of guy and I don’t see that changing any time soon."
