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Nobody talks about the final delivery of the Ashes. It's the first that's legendary. That stray ball that flies to slip, that elegant shot for four, that wicket, clean bowled! Last balls? I had to research them. Ali cutting a stroke behind to end an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Rankin playing in his single Test at the fag-end of a 30-over collapse in a comprehensive defeat that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery deflecting off Langer's shoulder for runs, the only four Australia manage in a pursuit they'll not undertake in 2005.

It separates between questioning how things will go, and understanding how they do. One certainty is, there's no assurance there will be a successful conclusion. For the past ten years, the English Australian tours have ended in ashes, rather than with them. Flower was dismissed as head coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after another, in 2021-22. You can make a two lineups out of English cricketers who featured in their final Test match at the tail end of an trip Down Under during the last quarter-century, and still have a couple of men over to act as substitutes for both teams.

Stokes' squad have not asserted to care too much about outcomes. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the one-day side before him, frequently remarks that regardless of whether a lofted drive is grabbed near the fence matters less as whether or not it was the right decision to play it in the first place, and during play he's happy to clap a delivery man who gives away boundaries so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the key rationale Ben Stokes tried to instruct his squad to adopt this approach was so they would be in a superior situation to execute the kind of cricket he thinks will perform effectively for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been preparing for so long, already feels like the result they are bound to face. It is Bazball's decisive moment. And there are numerous predictions of failure in English cricket for the team to escape criticism if they do suffer another bad defeat in the next few weeks. Stokes's approach has been based on challenging skeptics, and the flipside is it feels as if there are numerous observers who would be pleased to be proven correct.

Considering this, it's a suitable occasion to highlight that the key issue goes beyond where this ultimately leads, but regardless of whether we found pleasure along the way. Four years ago, England were an utterly abject cricket team. They had been defeated in four consecutive series and were trailing in the final one, against India, when it was suspended because of Covid. They had won exactly one Test match out of 17, and lost twelve of them by humiliating deficits. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at Edgbaston, 157 runs to India at the the famous stadium, an an innings defeat to the Aussie team at Melbourne, A defeat by ten wickets to the Caribbean side in the scenic location.

England were thrashed by West Indies in Grenada in the early part of 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as leader.

By the final stage, after all those months of health protocols and preventive measures and biosecure bubbles and endless beatings at the hands of each rival, they were just about the most disheartened and weary Test team England had ever fielded to a sports ground. A great deal of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have accomplished in the subsequent years was in response to all that, as well as the Stokes' experiences during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had endured a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to emphasize to all that it was supposed to be entertaining, if it was meant to be anything at all.

It still is now. Despite when the Ashes is on the line, and although the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they go about playing the game. Normal existence has a way of crowding in, it can be difficult to hold on to the insights we gain in our lowest moments.

Here is the national side that peeled off consecutive fourth-innings chases of three challenging targets in one season against the Black Caps; that scored a massive 378 to overcome India that same summer; that became the initial visiting side to win a comprehensive victory in the subcontinent country; that showed resilience to a draw after going 2-0 down in the the series; that beat the Indian team in Hyderabad off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever played in the the area, and then overcame Pakistan in the city off the back of a subsequent one.

It is the England team, too, that managed to end up losing a Test by an innings defeat even though the other team made a modest 326; who ended up losing one of the finer contests ever staged after making a confident decision in the opening session against the Black Caps, and then did the same thing against the Australian team; who were routed by 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of the Sri Lankan team's greatest victories. Collectively, they have achieved some of the most improbable victories, experienced some of the ugliest dismissals, made some of the surprising tons, and secured some of the most remarkable five-fers in the history of the English game.

Regardless of how this prestigious tournament shakes out, they have been, successively, incredible, outrageous, unconventional, infuriating, and completely, without regret, unashamedly thrilling.