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Few recall the concluding moment of the Ashes. That initial ball that's famous. That stray ball that goes to the slips, that cover drive for four, that wicket, shattering the stumps! Last balls? I needed to check. Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings loss in a inconsequential game in 2015; Rankin being caught in the slips off Harris, Rankin playing in his sole Test at the fag-end of a quick disintegration in a 5-0 whitewash that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery deflecting off Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary the Australian team manage in a pursuit they'll not undertake in 2005.

It distinguishes between wondering how things will go, and seeing how they do. One certainty is, there's no certainty there will be a happy ending. For the previous decade, the English Australian tours have ended in ashes, rather than with them. Andy Flower was removed as manager after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after another, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a couple of teams out of English cricketers who participated in their concluding Test match at the back end of an Australian tour during the previous 25 years, and additionally have a couple of men over to act as substitutes for both teams.

Stokes' squad have not professed to care too much about outcomes. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the one-day side before him, consistently states that whether or not a lifted stroke is caught on the boundary matters less as whether or not it was the proper call to play it in the beginning, and while fielding he's quick to praise a delivery man who gives away boundaries so long as they are bringing the team nearer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the very reason Stokes tried to guide his players to adopt this approach was so they would be in a more advantageous state to deliver the brand of the game he believes will perform effectively for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been preparing for so long, already seems like the result they can't get away from. It is this aggressive approach's make or break moment. And there are too many “I told you so’s” in English cricket for the team to escape criticism if they do experience another poor loss in the next few weeks. Stokes's approach has been based on defying expectations, and the counterpart is it feels as if there are plenty of people who would be thrilled to be validated.

Considering this, it's a suitable occasion to point out that the crucial matter goes beyond where this ultimately leads, but whether or not we had fun along the way. In the recent past, England were an completely dismal national side. They had been beaten in four straight contests and were falling behind in the fifth one, against the Indian team, when it was postponed because of the virus. They had won a single Test match out of seventeen, and lost twelve of them by humiliating deficits. Eight wickets to New Zealand at Edgbaston, 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the Oval, an a comprehensive loss to Australia at Melbourne, A defeat by ten wickets to the Caribbean side in the scenic location.

England were thrashed by the Caribbean team in the island in the early part of 2022 just before Joe Root stepped down as leader.

By the final stage, after all those stretches of testing and social distancing and biosecure bubbles and endless beatings at the hands of each rival, they were practically the most disheartened and weary Test team the English cricket board had ever sent out to a playing arena. So much of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the following period 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 experienced a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to emphasize to all that it was meant to be enjoyable, if it was meant to be something.

This continues to be the case now. Even when the Ashes 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 go about performing. Daily routines has a way of imposing, it can be difficult to remember the lessons we learn in our lowest moments.

Here is the English squad that achieved successive fourth-innings chases of three challenging targets in one period against New Zealand; that scored 378 to overcome India that corresponding period; that became the pioneering away squad to win a comprehensive victory in Pakistan; that showed resilience to a tie after going trailing by two matches in the the series; that defeated the Indian team in the historic venue off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever performed in the the area, and then beat the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a subsequent one.

This is the England team, too, that unexpectedly end up being defeated in a Test by an innings even though the opposition made a relatively low total; who ended up suffering a loss in one of the finer contests ever played after making a bold declaration in the initial batting effort against New Zealand, and then followed suit against Australia; who were soundly beaten by a massive 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the wrong end of one of the Sri Lankan team's finest wins. As a unit, they have secured some of the most improbable victories, experienced some of the poorest performances, made some of the surprising tons, and achieved some of the most remarkable five-wicket hauls in the annals of English cricket.

However this prestigious tournament unfolds, they have been, one after another, incredible, unbelievable, unconventional, exasperating, and completely, without regret, unashamedly entertaining.