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People rarely mention the last ball of the Ashes. It's the first that's renowned. That errant delivery that goes to the slips, that elegant shot for four, that dismissal, shattering the stumps! Concluding moments? I had to research them. Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Rankin being caught in the slips off Ryan Harris, Rankin playing in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a quick disintegration in a 5-0 whitewash that's been plentiful in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery glancing off Langer's shoulder for runs, the only four the Australian team score in a pursuit they'll not attempt in 2005.

It distinguishes between speculating how things will go, and knowing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no certainty there will be a happy ending. For the previous decade, England's visits to Australia have ended in ashes, rather than with them. Flower was removed as coach after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was let go after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. One could assemble a couple of teams out of national team members who participated in their concluding Test match at the back end of an trip Down Under during the previous 25 years, and even have a several individuals over to carry the drinks for both teams.

This England team have never claimed to care too much about outcomes. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the one-day side before him, consistently states that regardless of whether a lofted drive is caught on the boundary isn't as important as if it was the correct choice to play it in the first place, and while fielding he's happy to clap a pitcher who gives away boundaries so long as they are bringing the team closer to taking that next wicket. But then the primary motive Stokes tried to teach his team to adopt this approach was so they would be in a better position to produce the kind of cricket he believes will succeed for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been planning extensively, already feels like the outcome they are bound to face. It is this bold strategy's decisive moment. And there are numerous “I told you so’s” in the English game for the team to get away with it if they do suffer another disappointing result in the next few weeks. His methodology has been founded on defying expectations, and the other side is it feels as if there are many individuals who would be delighted to be shown right.

Considering this, it's a good moment to emphasize that the important question isn't just where this ultimately leads, but if we had fun along the way. A few years back, England were an thoroughly poor sports team. They had been overcome in four straight contests and were lagging in the fifth one, against India, when it was suspended because of the virus. 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 defeat by 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the Oval, an an innings defeat to Australia at the iconic ground, A defeat by ten wickets to the Caribbean side in the scenic location.

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

By the end, after all those stretches of nasal swabs and social distancing and biosecure bubbles and constant defeats at the hands of all opponents, they were just about the most dejected and careworn Test team England had ever put on to a cricket field. A significant portion of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have done in the years since was in response to all that, as well as the Stokes' experiences during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had endured a series of panic attacks. It was designed to make people recall that it was supposed to be fun, if it was supposed to be anything.

That remains true now. Even 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 somewhat adaptable in the way they tackle competing. Normal existence has a way of crowding in, it can be hard to remember the knowledge we acquire in our lowest moments.

Here is the England team that peeled off successive final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one summer against New Zealand; that achieved 378 to beat the subcontinent giants that identical season; that became the initial visiting side to win a comprehensive victory in the host nation; that showed resilience to a draw after going 2-0 down in the Ashes; that overcame India in the southern city off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever performed in the the region, and then overcame the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a subsequent one.

Here we have the national side, too, that somehow end up being defeated in a Test by an innings defeat even though the other team made a relatively low total; who ended up losing one of the better Tests ever contested after making a confident decision in the initial batting effort against the Kiwis, and then repeated the action against the Aussies; who were soundly beaten by a massive 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of the Sri Lankan team's finest wins. Collectively, they have achieved some of the most improbable victories, suffered some of the most embarrassing exits, scored some of the surprising centuries, and secured some of the most startling five-fers in the annals of English cricket.

Regardless of how this historic contest concludes, they have been, in turn, amazing, preposterous, ridiculous, infuriating, and entirely, unapologetically, unashamedly entertaining.