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People rarely mention the concluding moment of the Ashes. That initial ball that's legendary. That errant delivery that reaches the slip cordon, that elegant shot for four, that dismissal, shattering the stumps! Concluding moments? I had to research them. Moeen Ali cutting a stroke behind to end an innings rout in a dead rubber in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Ryan Harris, Rankin featuring in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a quick disintegration in a clean sweep that's been plentiful in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery glancing off Langer's shoulder for extras, the sole boundary Australia manage in a run chase they'll not attempt in 2005.

It separates between wondering how things will go, and understanding how they do. One certainty is, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the past ten years, the English Australian tours have finished in defeat, rather than with them. Flower lost his job as manager after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was sacked after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. One could assemble a two lineups out of English cricketers who participated in their concluding Test match at the back end of an trip Down Under during the last quarter-century, and additionally have a couple of men over to carry the drinks for either side.

Stokes' squad have never claimed to worry excessively about consequences. Stokes, like Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, consistently states that if a aerial shot is caught on the boundary is secondary as whether it was the proper call to play it in the first place, and while fielding he's happy to clap a delivery man who concedes runs so long as they are bringing the team nearer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the very reason Stokes tried to guide his players to play this way was so they would be in a superior situation to produce the kind of cricket he thinks will do well for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been training rigorously, already appears as the result they can't get away from. It is this bold strategy's make or break moment. And there are an abundance of warnings of defeat in English cricket for the team to get away with it if they do experience another bad defeat in the upcoming period. His methodology has been based on defying expectations, and the other side is it feels as if there are many individuals who would be pleased to be proven correct.

In light of this, it's a good moment to point out that the crucial matter is not only where this ultimately leads, but whether or not we enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an utterly abject cricket team. They had been beaten in a quartet of successive tournaments and were lagging in the final one, against India, when it was halted because of the pandemic. They had won a single Test match out of a series of 17, and lost 12 of them by large defeats. Eight wickets to the Black Caps at the Birmingham ground, A 157-run loss to the Indian squad at the the famous stadium, an an innings defeat to the Aussie team at the iconic ground, A ten-wicket loss to the Caribbean side in the island nation.

England were thrashed by the Caribbean team in the venue in March 2022 just before Root stepped aside as skipper.

By the conclusion, after all those months of health protocols and social distancing and restricted environments and repeated losses at the hands of each rival, they were practically the most miserable and careworn Test team England had ever sent out to a cricket field. So much of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the following period was in response to all that, as well as the former's individual trials during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had endured a bout of anxiety. It was created to remind everyone that it was intended as fun, if it was supposed to be anything at all.

This continues to be the case now. Even when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and even if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they go about competing. Everyday life has a way of imposing, it can be challenging to remember the insights we gain in our toughest times.

This is the national side that peeled off successive final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one period against New Zealand; that scored a massive 378 to beat the subcontinent giants that identical season; that became the initial visiting side to win a whitewash in Pakistan; that fought back to a tie after going 2-0 down in the Ashes; that beat India in the southern city off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever executed in the the region, and then defeated the Pakistani team in Multan off the back of another.

Here we have the national side, too, that somehow end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings even though the other team made a modest 326; who concluded losing one of the finer contests ever staged after making a cocksure declaration in the first innings against New Zealand, and then did the same thing against the Aussies; who were soundly beaten by 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the losing side of one of Sri Lanka's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have secured some of the surprising successes, experienced some of the ugliest dismissals, scored some of the unlikeliest hundreds, and achieved some of the most startling five-fers in the annals of the national sport.

No matter how this Ashes series concludes, they have been, one after another, incredible, preposterous, absurd, frustrating, and entirely, without regret, unashamedly enjoyable.