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Few recall the concluding moment of the Ashes. It's the first that's renowned. That stray ball that goes to the slips, that beautiful stroke for four, that fallen stump, shattering the stumps! Final deliveries? I needed to check. Moeen Ali cutting a stroke behind to conclude a batting effort rout in a dead rubber in 2015; Boyd Rankin being taken at slip off Harris, Rankin playing in his single Test at the fag-end of a rapid downfall in a 5-0 whitewash that's been commonplace in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the single four Australia achieve in a target they'll never get to make in 2005.

It's the difference between wondering how things will go, and understanding how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no certainty there will be a happy ending. For the past ten years, the English Australian tours have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower was dismissed as coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was sacked after another, in 2021-22. One could assemble a pair of XIs out of English cricketers who participated in their concluding Test match at the tail end of an Australian tour during the previous 25 years, and still have a few players over to carry the drinks for both teams.

This England team have not professed to worry excessively about consequences. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the one-day side before him, always says that whether or not a lofted drive is taken at the rope 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 concedes runs so long as they help bring the team toward 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 better position to deliver the brand of the game he feels will perform effectively for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been preparing for so long, already feels like the result they cannot escape. It is this aggressive approach's decisive moment. And there are an abundance of “I told you so’s” in English cricket for the team to escape criticism if they do endure a further poor loss in the next few weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on defying expectations, and the other side is it feels as if there are many individuals who would be thrilled to be shown right.

Considering this, it's a appropriate time to highlight that the key issue goes beyond where this ultimately leads, but whether or not we had fun along the way. Four years ago, England were an utterly abject national side. They had been defeated in a quartet of successive tournaments and were trailing in the fifth, against the Indian team, when it was postponed because of Covid. They had won a single Test match out of seventeen, and lost a dozen of them by humiliating deficits. Eight wickets to the Black Caps at the historic venue, A defeat by 157 runs to the Indian squad at the Oval, an a comprehensive loss to the Aussie team at the iconic ground, 10 wickets to the Windies in Grenada.

England were thrashed by West Indies in Grenada in March 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as skipper.

By the end, after all those periods of health protocols and social distancing and biosecure bubbles and constant defeats at the hands of all opponents, they were virtually the most disheartened and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever fielded to a playing arena. A great deal of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have achieved 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 experienced a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to emphasize to all that it was meant to be enjoyable, if it was intended as anything.

It still is now. Even when the the historic series is on the line, and even if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they approach playing the game. Normal existence has a way of intruding, it can be challenging to retain the knowledge we acquire in our most difficult periods.

This is the English squad that secured back-to-back fourth-innings chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one season against the Black Caps; that scored a huge total to overcome the Indian team that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a clean sweep in the host nation; that battled hard to a stalemate after going two games behind in the the series; 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 location off the back of another.

This is the English squad, too, that unexpectedly end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings even though the other team made a relatively low total; who ended up suffering a loss in one of the better Tests ever staged after making a bold declaration in the opening session against the Kiwis, and then repeated the action against Australia; who were routed by a huge margin in the Indian city, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of the island nation's finest wins. As a unit, they have achieved some of the unlikeliest wins, endured some of the most embarrassing exits, made some of the surprising hundreds, and secured some of the most surprising five-fers in the annals of the national sport.

Regardless of how this historic contest concludes, they have been, successively, incredible, preposterous, ridiculous, frustrating, and entirely, unapologetically, boldly enjoyable.