Darren Lehmann the joker makes Darren Lehmann the successful coach he is Darren Lehmann and Michael Clarke celebrate Australia's Ashes win. DARREN Lehmann attributes Australia's cricketing resurgence to "funny s--t." It is a typically straightforward term but also the best way to describe how the fun-loving coach has relieved the pressure on Australia's Test cricketers and made them smile again. Not long ago, the men in baggy green caps were so straight and serious the tension could almost be seen dripping from their strained foreheads. These were players who had forgotten how to enjoy the game and each other. They were so worried about their spots and strict team directives that they often turned on each other, as happened in India when four players were sacked from a Test match. Enter "Boof" Lehmann and his fun. He hides players' bats and their gear. He hides himself and jumps out of cupboards. Boof is the class clown, always playing jokes and gags on players or taking the mickey out of them," Lehmann's great mate and Australian fitness coach Damian Mednis says. He calls it funny s--t. One of the reasons I think he got me involved in the Australian team because he wanted someone else to help him with his funny s--t. Boof picks on blokes in a comical way. He is always sniffing out information on guys in the team and then stirring them up when he has some info on them. He might find out that a player has been seen out at a posh restaurant with a pretty girl. He will be at the player, geeing them up about whether they are going to put a ring on the girl's finger. He won't let up. He makes sure the players are always laughing and joking and having fun with each other. I get the feeling that before he came along, some of the blokes in the team hadn't had much to smile about for a while. Even apart from encouraging his players to play with a new sense of freedom and attacking flair, it is clear Lehmann has brought the fun back to cricket. One of the new trademarks of the Australian Test team is a "joke of the day" competition which Lehmann started in his time at the Queensland Bulls. Mednis, who also came from the Bulls, is funny man who is renowned for his side-splitting jokes. So Lehmann asked him to tell a joke before day one of the Gabba Test and on the last morning of the Sydney Test. In between there have been some jokes. Some funny, others not so much. There have been players who have spent plenty of hours researching and refining a joke, only for it to fall flat with poor delivery. Ryan Harris with Australia coach Darren Lehmann. But it has ensured the players can laugh with each other and at each other. A funny gag or practical joke is never far away with Lehmann at the helm. Sometimes it is what is left unsaid that is the funniest. "At the MCG, Ryan Harris was filthy with the way he got out and came back into the dressingroom and smashed his bat up," Mednis says. Boof has never been big on blokes turning on a tantrum in the dressingroom after they get out. Before the team meeting at the end of the day, Boof got Ryan's broken bat and placed it right at the front. Ryan thought he was going to cop a big serve or a fine or something. Boof just had the team meeting without saying a single word about the broken bat as the bat sat in front of the players. It was absolutely priceless. Lehmann might be funny but he also commands respect. Several Australian players have been on the end of his wrath when they have been slightly late for a training session or not done something he has asked. Most of today's cricketers live in a multi-million dollar bubble but Lehmann can call on plenty of real-life experiences. He once worked in Holden factory in Adelaide, had to battle for a decade in South Australia before getting a taste of Test cricket, endured the pain of a broken marriage and was there on the night his best mate David Hookes died. Lehmann is the sum of his experiences and one thing he has learnt over the journey is never to take himself or his job too seriously. He wants the players to train, prepare and play with a similar fun-loving spirit. After days of Test cricket this summer, Aussie cricket fans have spent countless hours debating and analysing the play of the day but it might have been the joke of the day that was just as important. It turns out the joke was on the Poms.