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Few recall the last ball of the Ashes. That initial ball that's famous. That stray ball that goes to the slips, that elegant shot for four, that wicket, shattering the stumps! Final deliveries? I had to research them. Ali cutting a stroke behind to end an innings defeat in a dead rubber in 2015; Rankin being caught in the slips off Ryan Harris, Rankin playing in his single Test at the fag-end of a rapid downfall in a comprehensive defeat that's been plentiful in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery glancing off Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary the Australian team score in a target they'll not undertake in 2005.

It distinguishes between speculating how things will go, and understanding how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no certainty there will be a positive outcome. For the previous decade, the English visits to Australia have concluded in failure, instead of with them. Flower lost his job as coach after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after a further defeat, in 2021-22. One could assemble a pair of XIs out of English cricketers who featured in their final Test match at the tail end of an tour to Australia during the previous 25 years, and still have a few players over to act as substitutes for either side.

The current English side have never claimed to worry excessively about outcomes. Stokes, like Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, consistently states that regardless of whether a lofted drive is taken at the rope isn't as important as if it was the right decision to play it in the first place, and during play he's pleased to applaud a delivery man who concedes runs so long as they are bringing the team closer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the key rationale Stokes tried to instruct his squad to follow this style was so they would be in a better position to execute the style of play he thinks will do well for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been preparing for so long, already appears as the outcome they cannot escape. It is this aggressive approach's decisive moment. And there are an abundance of “I told you so’s” in the English game for the team to get away with it if they do experience another poor loss in the upcoming period. His methodology has been based on defying expectations, and the other side is it appears there are plenty of people who would be pleased to be proven correct.

Considering this, it's a suitable occasion to point out that the important question isn't just where this all ends up, but whether or not we enjoyed it along the way. A few years back, England were an utterly abject sports team. They had been overcome in four straight contests and were lagging in the fifth, against India, when it was suspended because of Covid. They had won a single Test match out of a series of 17, and lost twelve of them by embarrassing margins. Eight wickets to New Zealand at Edgbaston, A defeat by 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the famous stadium, an innings and 14 runs to Australia at the iconic ground, A ten-wicket loss to the Windies in the island nation.

The English side was routed by the Caribbean team in Grenada in March 2022 just before Root stepped down as captain.

By the final stage, after all those periods of health protocols and preventive measures and biosecure bubbles and repeated losses at the hands of each rival, they were virtually the most miserable and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever fielded to a cricket field. A significant portion of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have achieved in the following period was in a consequence of all that, as well as the Stokes' personal encounters during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had endured a period of mental health challenges. It was created to make people recall that it was meant to be enjoyable, if it was intended as anything.

This continues to be the case now. Although the the historic series is on the line, and even if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they approach competing. Normal existence has a way of intruding, it can be difficult to hold on to the insights we gain in our toughest times.

This is the national side that peeled off successive run chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one season against the Black Caps; that scored 378 to beat the subcontinent giants that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a clean sweep in Pakistan; that battled hard to a draw after going 2-0 down in the Ashes; that overcame the Indian team in the southern city off the back of one of the greatest innings ever performed in the subcontinent, and then defeated the Pakistani team in Multan off the back of another.

It is the national side, too, that unexpectedly end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings defeat even though the rivals made a modest 326; who ended up suffering a loss in one of the more exciting matches ever played after making a bold declaration in the opening session against the Black Caps, and then followed suit against the Aussies; who were routed by a massive 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the wrong end of one of Sri Lanka's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have achieved some of the most improbable victories, suffered some of the poorest performances, scored some of the most improbable tons, and secured some of the most startling five-fers in the history of English cricket.

No matter how this prestigious tournament unfolds, they have been, in turn, incredible, outrageous, absurd, infuriating, and entirely, without regret, boldly enjoyable.