'Just enjoy yourselves': Brook puts fun at heart of captaincy

As long overseas trip begins, England's white-ball leader wants his team to focus on lightening rigours of touring

- Simon Burnton

England's white-ball team have played 24 times this year, most recently a little more than three weeks ago. New Zealand's have played 28 games, the latest was this month. These are groups who spend a lot of time together, but before the start of their Twenty20 series tomorrow both chiselled some space out of their schedule to do something surprisingly unusual: nothing very much.

Brendon McCullum took his team to Queenstown in the Southern Alps where, in Harry Brook's words, they were "just left to our own devices". There was some hiking, a bit of go-karting and, inevitably, a lot of golf.

"We had an amazing time," Brook said. "They've got some amazing golf courses down there and we were lucky enough to get on a couple of them. A couple of lads managed to get out and explore Queenstown. We had a few drinks here and there and team meals.

"We had a lot of fun - it was about trying to spend a bit of time together because we don't really get that in the white-ball [team]. If you're having a lot of fun off the field and enjoying spending time with the lads, then it's going to be even better on the field. So I encourage everybody under mine and Baz's leadership to just enjoy themselves."