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Nobody talks about the last ball of the Ashes. It's the first that's renowned. That errant delivery that reaches the slip cordon, that beautiful stroke for four, that wicket, bowled him! Concluding moments? I needed to check. Ali cutting a stroke behind to end an innings defeat in a inconsequential game in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his single Test at the conclusion of a quick disintegration in a comprehensive defeat that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison bouncer ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for extras, the single four the Australian team score in a run chase they'll not undertake in 2005.

It separates between speculating how things will go, and seeing how they do. One certainty is, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the previous decade, the English trips Down Under have ended in ashes, instead of with them. Flower lost his job as coach after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Silverwood was sacked after a further defeat, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a two lineups out of national team members who participated in their concluding Test match at the tail end of an tour to Australia during the last quarter-century, and even have a couple of men over to serve as reserves for either side.

This England team have not professed to be overly concerned about results. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, frequently remarks that regardless of whether a lofted drive is taken at the rope is secondary as whether or not it was the correct choice to attempt it in the outset, and while fielding he's pleased to applaud a bowler who concedes runs so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that next wicket. But then the very reason Stokes tried to guide his players to adopt this approach was so they would be in a more advantageous state to deliver the kind of cricket he feels will succeed for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been planning extensively, already appears as the outcome they are bound to face. It is this bold strategy's critical moment. And there are an abundance of warnings of defeat in English cricket for the team to escape criticism if they do suffer another disappointing result in the coming weeks. Stokes's approach has been predicated on defying expectations, and the flipside is it appears there are many individuals who would be delighted to be validated.

Given that, it's a suitable occasion to emphasize that the crucial matter is not only where this ultimately leads, but regardless of whether we had fun along the way. Four years ago, England were an thoroughly poor national side. They had been beaten in a quartet of successive tournaments and were trailing in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was halted because of the virus. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost a dozen of them by humiliating deficits. A loss by eight wickets to New Zealand at the Birmingham ground, A 157-run loss to India at the the London ground, an a comprehensive loss to the Aussie team at the MCG, 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 captain.

By the final stage, after all those stretches of health protocols and isolation and restricted environments and endless beatings at the hands of each rival, they were virtually the most miserable and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever sent out to a sports ground. A great deal of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have achieved in the following period was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' individual trials during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to emphasize to all that it was intended as enjoyable, if it was meant to be something.

It still is now. Although the Ashes 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 go about competing. Everyday life has a way of crowding in, it can be difficult to hold on to the lessons we learn in our lowest moments.

Here is the national side that peeled off back-to-back final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one season against the Black Caps; that made 378 to defeat the subcontinent giants that same summer; that became the first touring team to win a clean sweep in the subcontinent country; that battled hard to a tie after going trailing by two matches in the the contest; that defeated India in the historic venue off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever performed in the subcontinent, and then overcame the Pakistani team in Multan off the back of a subsequent one.

It is the English squad, too, that somehow end up being defeated in a Test by an innings defeat even though the opposition made a relatively low total; who ended up suffering a loss in one of the better Tests ever contested after making a cocksure declaration in the initial batting effort against the Black Caps, and then did the same thing against Australia; who were soundly beaten by a massive 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the wrong end of one of Sri Lanka's most notable triumphs. As a unit, they have achieved some of the surprising successes, suffered some of the most embarrassing exits, made some of the unlikeliest hundreds, and achieved some of the most remarkable five-fers in the records of the national sport.

However this historic contest unfolds, they have been, in turn, incredible, outrageous, absurd, frustrating, and totally, without regret, boldly entertaining.