NASSER HUSSAIN: England’s journey from Ashes flops to top of the pops has been a sensational ride 

As England prepare for the final Test of the year, it’s amazing to think about where they were at the end of the Ashes in Hobart in January.

At that time everything was pessimistic and it worsened after the defeat in the Caribbean. Not long after that, they had no captain, no head coach, no director of cricket, a part-time president and an outgoing CEO.

The English game was in a pretty bleak place. It was depressing to be around him, especially as the team contained four players who will become England greats: Jimmy Anderson, Stuart Broad, Joe Root and Ben Stokes.

Ben Stokes has been a linchpin throughout England’s tremendous campaign this year.

A 17 Test win just wasn’t good enough.

We have to acknowledge that the players went through a lot with Covid and bubble life. Considering what Root had to deal with behind the scenes, it was remarkable that his own hitting continued to thrive. But Andrew Strauss was right to appoint Rob Key as director of cricket, and Key was also right in his appointments: Stokes as captain and Brendon McCullum as Test manager, when everyone thought the New Zealander would be a better fit for the white-ball role.

Would a combination of Gary Kirsten and Stokes have worked as well as Stokes and McCullum? There may have been some mixed messages, and there is none of that under this regime.

Quite simply, every player has bought a fearless brand of cricket. I interviewed Ben Duckett the other day, after Abrar Ahmed had taken seven wickets, and he was relentlessly positive, saying that everyone could choose mystery roulette. Then Ollie Pope said that he is no longer afraid of failure.

Beforehand, this side was overwhelmed by everything: Covid, bubble life, tactics, technique, media reaction. Now they just go out and have fun.

English cricket looked in disarray after disappointment at the Ashes in January

One of the most notable aspects of all this has been the speed of the transformation, and for that Stokes and McCullum deserve a lot of credit. Stokes insisted that he was not going to play for draws, and he has not, at any time. If anything, he has gone to the other side of the line, saying they will push No 11 Anderson out the gate if they need 20 to win with an over to go. The thing is, you may as well believe it. Good for them.

Scoring rate has been a huge factor, even if they maybe went too far once or twice over the summer. But that was because Stokes wanted to show everyone what it took. Broad said that during a session at the net, Stokes chased him on every ball. In the end, he told Broad that he wanted to play like this to send a message to his teammates: this is what we’re going to do.

It won’t always be easy, and there will be challenges next summer against Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood armed with the Dukes ball. England can be wrong from time to time. But what team doesn’t?

What has also been crucial, especially during this series, has been England’s ability to take 20 wickets. And that’s where Stokes’s tactical notion has come into play. I always felt like he had it, but he’s really been brilliant on the field.

Stokes has really shown that his tactical savvy has come into play throughout England matches.

I’m not convinced that his approach is going to transform Test Cricket, because not every team can bring in batsmen raised in the game of white ball, like Duckett and Harry Brook. And other teams have players who do it differently: Marnus Labuschagne is the number 1 in the world playing with his own style.

Likewise, you wouldn’t expect someone like Kraigg Brathwaite, the successful West Indies opener, to suddenly start playing his shots.

McCullum will continue to value racing as his primary currency, as Alex Lees found out over the summer. I can’t believe, for example, that Alastair Cook in his prime wouldn’t make this team.

But what McCullum and Stokes have done is transform English exam cricket by making it much more fun and easier to watch. He is spreading the gospel and players in other countries are being asked about it. Some people of course expect it to fail, and if it does, that would be the litmus test for this team. But one thing is certain: they will not back down.