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Nobody talks about the last ball of the Ashes. That initial ball that's legendary. That errant delivery that goes to the slips, that beautiful stroke for four, that wicket, bowled him! Concluding moments? I needed to check. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings loss in a dead rubber in 2015; Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his one and only Test at the tail-end of a rapid downfall in a clean sweep that's been commonplace in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery ricocheting away Justin Langer's shoulder for extras, the only four the Aussies manage in a pursuit they'll not attempt in 2005.

It's the difference between questioning how things will go, and understanding how they do. One certainty is, there's no assurance there will be a happy ending. For the past ten years, England's Australian tours have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower lost his job as manager after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after another, in 2021-22. You can make a pair of XIs out of English cricketers who participated in their concluding Test match at the back end of an tour to Australia during the last quarter-century, and even have a few players over to serve as reserves for both teams.

Stokes' squad have not asserted to worry excessively about outcomes. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the ODI squad before him, always says that whether or not a lofted drive is grabbed near the fence matters less as whether or not it was the right decision to attempt it in the first place, and while fielding he's happy to clap a pitcher who gives away boundaries so long as they help bring the team closer to taking that next wicket. But then the key rationale Ben Stokes tried to teach his team to adopt this approach was so they would be in a more advantageous state to execute the style of play he thinks will succeed for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been training rigorously, already appears as the outcome they can't get away from. It is this bold strategy's make or break moment. And there are numerous warnings of defeat in the English game for the team to escape criticism if they do experience another poor loss in the upcoming period. The captain's strategy has been founded on defying expectations, and the flipside is it appears there are plenty of people who would be delighted to be proven correct.

Given that, it's a appropriate time to highlight that the important question is not only where this ultimately leads, but whether or not we had fun along the way. Four years ago, England were an utterly abject cricket team. They had been beaten in four consecutive series and were lagging in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was suspended because of the virus. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost a dozen of them by humiliating deficits. An eight-wicket defeat to the Black Caps at the historic venue, A 157-run loss to India at the Oval, an an innings defeat to the Australians at the iconic ground, 10 wickets to the Caribbean side in Grenada.

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

By the final stage, after all those periods of nasal swabs and isolation and restricted environments and repeated losses at the hands of everyone they played, they were virtually the most disheartened and exhausted Test team England had ever put on to a cricket field. A great deal of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have achieved in the years since was in a consequence of all that, as well as the Stokes' personal encounters during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a series of panic attacks. It was intended to remind everyone that it was meant to be enjoyable, if it was intended as something.

It still is now. Despite when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and although the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they go about competing. Normal existence has a way of crowding in, it can be hard to remember the lessons we learn in our toughest times.

This is the national side that peeled off back-to-back final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one summer against the Black Caps; that achieved a huge total to defeat the Indian team that corresponding period; that became the initial visiting side to win a whitewash in the host nation; that battled hard to a stalemate after going trailing by two matches in the the contest; that defeated India in the southern city off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever played in the the area, and then overcame Pakistan in Multan off the back of a further exceptional performance.

This is the national side, too, that managed to end up being defeated in a Test by an innings defeat even though the rivals made a modest 326; who ended up being defeated in one of the more exciting matches ever played after making a bold declaration in the opening session against the Black Caps, and then repeated the action against Australia; who were soundly beaten by 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the wrong end of one of the Sri Lankan team's most notable triumphs. As a unit, they have secured some of the surprising successes, suffered some of the ugliest dismissals, made some of the surprising tons, and secured some of the most remarkable five-wicket hauls in the history of the national sport.

Regardless of how this Ashes series concludes, they have been, one after another, amazing, unbelievable, absurd, infuriating, and completely, without regret, unashamedly enjoyable.