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People rarely mention the last ball of the Ashes. That initial ball that's renowned. That stray ball that goes to the slips, that elegant shot for four, that wicket, bowled him! Final deliveries? I needed to check. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Rankin participating in his one and only Test at the tail-end of a 30-over collapse in a comprehensive defeat that's been commonplace in 2014; a Steve Harmison bouncer glancing off Justin Langer's shoulder for runs, the single four the Aussies achieve in a pursuit they'll not attempt in 2005.

It distinguishes between questioning how things will go, and seeing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the previous decade, England's visits to Australia have ended in ashes, instead of with them. Flower lost his job as head coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after another, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a pair of XIs out of national team members who played their last Test match at the tail end of an Australian tour during the previous 25 years, and additionally have a couple of men over to carry the drinks for each squad.

Stokes' squad have never claimed to worry excessively about results. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, frequently remarks that regardless of whether a aerial shot is caught on the boundary isn't as important as if it was the right decision to play it in the outset, and while fielding he's pleased to applaud a delivery man who concedes runs so long as they help bring the team nearer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the very reason Ben Stokes tried to guide his players to play this way was so they would be in a more advantageous state to execute the brand of the game he believes will succeed for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been preparing for so long, already feels like the outcome they cannot escape. It is this bold strategy's critical moment. And there are too many predictions of failure in the English game for the team to get away with it if they do endure a further bad defeat in the coming weeks. Stokes's approach has been founded on proving everyone wrong, and the other side is it feels as if there are many individuals who would be delighted to be shown right.

In light of this, it's a suitable occasion to highlight that the crucial matter isn't just where this concludes, but whether or not we enjoyed it along the way. A few years back, the English team were an utterly abject national side. They had been beaten in a quartet of successive tournaments and were lagging in the fifth, against the Indian team, when it was suspended because of the pandemic. They had won exactly one Test match out of 17, and lost a dozen of them by large defeats. An eight-wicket defeat to the Kiwis at the historic venue, A 157-run loss to India at the the London ground, an an innings defeat to Australia at the MCG, A defeat by ten wickets to the Caribbean side in the island nation.

The team was soundly beaten by West Indies in the island in the early part of 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as captain.

By the conclusion, after all those months of health protocols and isolation and restricted environments and endless beatings at the hands of everyone they played, they were practically the most dejected and exhausted Test team England had ever sent out to a cricket field. A significant portion of what Stokes and McCullum have done in the years since was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's experiences during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a series of panic attacks. It was created to make people recall that it was intended as entertaining, if it was meant to be anything.

That remains true now. Even when the the historic series is on the line, and regardless if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they approach performing. Daily routines has a way of intruding, it can be challenging to hold on to the insights we gain in our toughest times.

Here is the national side that secured back-to-back final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one season against the Black Caps; that made a massive 378 to defeat the Indian team that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a comprehensive victory in the host nation; that showed resilience to a tie after going trailing by two matches in the Ashes; that beat India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever played in the subcontinent, and then defeated Pakistan in the city off the back of a further exceptional performance.

It is the English squad, too, that somehow end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings even though the other team made a modest 326; who fetched up being defeated in one of the more exciting matches ever played after making a cocksure declaration in the opening session against the Kiwis, and then followed suit against Australia; who were routed by 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the losing side of one of the Sri Lankan team's greatest victories. Between them, they have recorded some of the most improbable victories, experienced some of the ugliest dismissals, achieved some of the unlikeliest hundreds, and achieved some of the most remarkable five-fers in the records of English cricket.

However this prestigious tournament concludes, they have been, one after another, incredible, unbelievable, unconventional, infuriating, and totally, unrepentantly, boldly entertaining.