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People rarely mention the last ball of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's famous. That errant delivery that flies to slip, that beautiful stroke for four, that dismissal, bowled him! Concluding moments? I had to research them. Ali cutting a stroke behind to end an innings loss in a meaningless match in 2015; Rankin being caught in the slips off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin participating in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a rapid downfall in a comprehensive defeat that's been plentiful in 2014; a Harmison bouncer ricocheting away Justin Langer's shoulder for extras, the only four the Aussies score in a pursuit they'll never get to make in 2005.

It's the difference between wondering how things will go, and knowing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no certainty there will be a successful conclusion. For the previous decade, the English Australian tours have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower lost his job as manager after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after a further defeat, in 2021-22. One could assemble a two lineups out of England players who played their last Test match at the tail end of an tour to Australia during the past 25 years, and additionally have a few players over to act as substitutes for each squad.

The current English side have not professed to care too much about results. Stokes, like Morgan with the one-day side before him, consistently states that regardless of whether a lifted stroke is grabbed near the fence is secondary as whether it was the right decision to attempt it in the outset, and during play he's pleased to applaud a bowler who gives away boundaries so long as they bringing the team closer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the very reason Stokes tried to teach his team to adopt this approach was so they would be in a better position to execute the kind of cricket he believes will do well 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 critical moment. And there are numerous predictions of failure in English cricket for the team to avoid backlash if they do suffer another poor loss in the coming weeks. His methodology has been founded on defying expectations, and the other side is it feels as if there are numerous observers who would be thrilled to be proven correct.

Considering this, it's a suitable occasion to point out that the important question isn't just where this ultimately leads, but regardless of whether we enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an thoroughly poor national side. They had been beaten in four consecutive series and were lagging in the fifth, against the Indian team, when it was suspended because of the pandemic. They had won only one Test match out of a series of 17, and lost 12 of them by large defeats. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at the Birmingham ground, 157 runs to India at the the London ground, an innings and 14 runs to Australia at the MCG, A ten-wicket loss to the Windies in the scenic location.

England were thrashed by the Caribbean team in the island in the early part of 2022 just before Joe Root resigned as leader.

By the conclusion, after all those stretches of nasal swabs and preventive measures and controlled settings and constant defeats at the hands of each rival, they were just about the most disheartened and exhausted Test team England had ever sent out to a cricket field. So much of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the subsequent years was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to make people recall that it was meant to be entertaining, if it was intended as something.

That remains true now. Despite when the the historic series is on the line, and regardless if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they approach performing. Everyday life has a way of crowding in, it can be difficult to remember the lessons we learn in our lowest moments.

Here is the English squad that peeled off consecutive fourth-innings chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one summer against the Kiwis; that achieved a huge total to beat the Indian team that same summer; that became the pioneering away squad to win a comprehensive victory in the subcontinent country; that showed resilience to a stalemate after going 2-0 down in the Ashes; that beat India in the southern city off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever played in the subcontinent, and then beat Pakistan in the location off the back of another.

Here we have the national side, too, that somehow end up losing a Test by an innings defeat even though the other team made a modest 326; who fetched up being defeated in one of the better Tests ever contested after making a cocksure declaration in the first innings against New Zealand, and then did the same thing against the Australian team; who were routed by 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the wrong end of one of the Sri Lankan team's finest wins. Collectively, they have achieved some of the surprising successes, endured some of the most embarrassing exits, made some of the surprising hundreds, and taken some of the most surprising five-fers in the history of English cricket.

However this prestigious tournament unfolds, they have been, in turn, astonishing, outrageous, unconventional, infuriating, and totally, unrepentantly, unashamedly enjoyable.