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Nobody talks about the last ball of the Ashes. It's the first that's famous. That wide that goes to the slips, that elegant shot for four, that fallen stump, clean bowled! Final deliveries? I had to look them up. Moeen Ali edging a shot behind to conclude a batting effort rout in a dead rubber in 2015; Boyd Rankin being taken at slip off Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his sole Test at the conclusion of a quick disintegration in a comprehensive defeat that's been commonplace in 2014; a Harmison bouncer ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary the Australian team achieve in a target they'll not attempt in 2005.

It separates between speculating how things will go, and seeing how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no guarantee there will be a happy ending. For the previous decade, England's Australian tours have ended in ashes, rather than with them. Flower lost his job as coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was let go after a further defeat, in 2021-22. One could assemble a pair of XIs out of England players who played their last Test match at the tail end of an tour to Australia during the past 25 years, and additionally have a several individuals over to act as substitutes for each squad.

This England team have never claimed to be overly concerned about results. Stokes, like Morgan with the ODI squad before him, always says that regardless of whether a lofted drive is caught on the boundary is secondary as if it was the correct choice to attempt it in the outset, and in the field he's happy to clap a bowler who concedes runs so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the very reason Stokes tried to instruct his squad to follow this style was so they would be in a more advantageous state to deliver the brand of the game he feels will do well for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been training rigorously, already appears as the outcome they are bound to face. It is Bazball's decisive moment. And there are too many “I told you so’s” in English cricket for the team to escape criticism if they do suffer another poor loss in the next few weeks. His methodology has been founded on proving everyone wrong, and the flipside is it seems that there are plenty of people who would be pleased to be shown right.

In light of this, it's a good moment to highlight that the crucial matter goes beyond where this ultimately leads, but regardless of whether we had fun along the way. In the recent past, England were an thoroughly poor national side. They had been defeated in four straight contests and were lagging in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was halted because of the virus. They had won only one Test match out of seventeen, and lost twelve of them by embarrassing margins. A loss by eight wickets to the Black Caps at the historic venue, 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the London ground, an an innings defeat to the Australians at the MCG, 10 wickets to the Caribbean side in Grenada.

The English side was routed by West Indies in the island in spring 2022 just before Root resigned as leader.

By the conclusion, after all those stretches of testing and preventive measures and biosecure bubbles and constant defeats at the hands of everyone they played, they were just about the most disheartened and exhausted Test team England had ever fielded to a playing arena. A significant portion of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have achieved in the subsequent years was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's experiences during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a period of mental health challenges. It was designed to remind everyone that it was meant to be fun, if it was meant to be anything.

That remains true now. Even when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and regardless if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they approach playing the game. Everyday life has a way of imposing, it can be hard to hold on to the knowledge we acquire in our most difficult periods.

This is the England team that achieved consecutive final innings pursuits of 277, 299, and 296 in one summer against New Zealand; that achieved a massive 378 to beat India that corresponding period; that became the initial visiting side to win a whitewash in Pakistan; that showed resilience to a stalemate after going 2-0 down in the Ashes; that overcame the Indian team in the historic venue off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever performed in the the area, and then overcame the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a further exceptional performance.

Here we have the national side, too, that somehow end up being defeated in a Test by an innings defeat even though the opposition made only 326; who fetched up suffering a loss in one of the more exciting matches ever staged after making a bold declaration in the first innings against the Black Caps, and then repeated the action against the Aussies; who were soundly beaten by 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the losing side of one of the Sri Lankan team's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have recorded some of the unlikeliest wins, suffered some of the most embarrassing exits, achieved some of the unlikeliest hundreds, and secured some of the most remarkable five-wicket hauls in the records of the English game.

No matter how this Ashes series unfolds, they have been, one after another, amazing, unbelievable, unconventional, infuriating, and completely, without regret, boldly enjoyable.