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People rarely mention the last ball of the Ashes. It's the first that's famous. That errant delivery that reaches the slip cordon, that beautiful stroke for four, that wicket, shattering the stumps! Final deliveries? I had to look them up. Ali cutting a stroke behind to finish an innings rout in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his sole Test at the fag-end of a rapid downfall in a 5-0 whitewash that's been commonplace in 2014; a Steve Harmison bouncer ricocheting away Justin Langer's shoulder for runs, the single four the Aussies achieve in a pursuit they'll never get to make in 2005.

It separates between wondering how things will go, and knowing how they do. One certainty is, there's no certainty there will be a successful conclusion. For the last decade, the English visits to Australia have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower was dismissed as manager after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Silverwood was sacked after a further defeat, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a two lineups out of England players who played their last Test match at the conclusion of an tour to Australia during the previous 25 years, and even have a couple of men over to act as substitutes for both teams.

Stokes' squad have not asserted to worry excessively about results. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the ODI squad before him, consistently states that regardless of whether a lifted stroke is caught on the boundary isn't as important as whether it was the right decision to attempt it in the beginning, and in the field he's pleased to applaud a bowler who concedes runs so long as they help bring the team closer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the very reason Stokes tried to teach his team to follow this style was so they would be in a superior situation to deliver the style of play he believes will perform effectively for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been planning extensively, already feels like the result they cannot escape. It is Bazball's decisive moment. And there are numerous “I told you so’s” in English cricket for the team to avoid backlash if they do experience another poor loss in the next few weeks. Stokes's approach has been predicated on defying expectations, and the other side is it appears there are plenty of people who would be thrilled to be validated.

Considering this, it's a suitable occasion to point out that the crucial matter isn't just where this concludes, but whether or not we had fun along the way. Four years ago, England were an completely dismal national side. They had been defeated in four straight contests and were falling behind in the fifth one, against the Indian team, when it was postponed because of the pandemic. They had won exactly one Test match out of 17, and lost twelve of them by humiliating deficits. A loss by eight wickets to New Zealand at the Birmingham ground, A 157-run loss to the Indian squad at the the famous stadium, an innings and 14 runs to the Aussie team at the iconic ground, 10 wickets to the Caribbean side in Grenada.

The team was soundly beaten by West Indies in Grenada in the early part of 2022 just before Root resigned as leader.

By the final stage, after all those stretches of testing and preventive measures and controlled settings and endless beatings at the hands of each rival, they were practically the most dejected and weary Test team England had ever put on to a sports ground. A significant portion of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the subsequent years was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' personal encounters during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to remind everyone that it was intended as entertaining, if it was supposed to be anything.

This continues to be the case now. Despite when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and regardless if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they approach performing. Daily routines has a way of intruding, it can be hard to hold on to the insights we gain in our toughest times.

Presented is the national side that achieved consecutive final innings pursuits of 277, 299, and 296 in one summer against the Kiwis; that scored 378 to defeat India that same summer; that became the pioneering away squad to win a whitewash in the subcontinent country; that battled hard to a tie after going two games behind in the Ashes; that overcame the Indian team in the historic venue off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever performed in the the region, and then beat Pakistan in Multan off the back of another.

It is the England team, too, that managed to end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an large margin even though the opposition made a modest 326; who fetched up being defeated in one of the better Tests ever played after making a cocksure declaration in the first innings against the Kiwis, and then followed suit against the Australian team; who were thrashed by 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the losing side of one of the Sri Lankan team's finest wins. Between them, they have secured some of the surprising successes, suffered some of the ugliest dismissals, achieved some of the most improbable hundreds, and achieved some of the most surprising five-wicket hauls in the annals of English cricket.

Regardless of how this Ashes series shakes out, they have been, in turn, amazing, unbelievable, unconventional, frustrating, and totally, unrepentantly, unapologetically enjoyable.