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Nobody talks about the concluding moment of the Ashes. That initial ball that's famous. That errant delivery that reaches the slip cordon, that cover drive for four, that fallen stump, shattering the stumps! Final deliveries? I had to look them up. Ali slicing a drive behind to finish an innings rout in a inconsequential game in 2015; Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Boyd Rankin featuring in his one and only Test at the tail-end of a rapid downfall in a 5-0 whitewash that's been commonplace in 2014; a Harmison short ball glancing off Justin Langer's shoulder for extras, the only four the Australian team manage in a target they'll not undertake in 2005.

It separates between wondering how things will go, and seeing how they do. One certainty is, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the last decade, the English Australian tours have concluded in failure, instead of with them. Andy Flower lost his job as head coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after another, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a two lineups out of English cricketers who featured in their final Test match at the conclusion of an Australian tour during the last quarter-century, and even have a several individuals over to serve as reserves for both teams.

This England team have not asserted to worry excessively about consequences. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, frequently remarks that if a lofted drive is caught on the boundary matters less as whether or not it was the proper call to play it in the outset, and during play he's happy to clap a bowler who allows scoring shots so long as they help bring the team closer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the primary motive Ben Stokes tried to guide his players to play this way was so they would be in a superior situation to execute the style of play he thinks will perform effectively for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been planning extensively, already seems like the outcome they can't get away from. It is this bold strategy's critical moment. And there are too many predictions of failure in the English game for the team to avoid backlash if they do endure a further bad defeat in the next few weeks. Stokes's approach has been founded on challenging skeptics, and the counterpart is it feels as if there are numerous observers who would be pleased to be validated.

Given that, it's a good moment to emphasize that the important question is not only where this concludes, but whether or not we enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, England were an thoroughly poor cricket team. They had been beaten in a quartet of successive tournaments and were lagging in the final one, against India, when it was postponed because of Covid. They had won a single Test match out of 17, and lost twelve of them by humiliating deficits. Eight wickets to New Zealand at the historic venue, 157 runs to India at the Oval, an innings and 14 runs to the Aussie team at Melbourne, 10 wickets to the Windies in the scenic location.

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

By the final stage, after all those months of health protocols and social distancing and biosecure bubbles and repeated losses at the hands of all opponents, they were practically the most miserable and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever fielded to a sports ground. So much of what Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the subsequent years was in a consequence of all that, as well as the former's individual trials during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had endured a series of panic attacks. It was intended to emphasize to all that it was supposed to be fun, if it was supposed to be something.

It still is now. Despite when the the historic series is on the line, and regardless if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they tackle playing the game. Normal existence has a way of crowding in, it can be challenging to retain the insights we gain in our toughest times.

Presented is the national side that peeled off back-to-back run chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one summer against the Kiwis; that made 378 to defeat the subcontinent giants that same summer; that became the pioneering away squad to win a comprehensive victory in Pakistan; that battled hard to a stalemate after going two games behind in the the series; that overcame the Indian team in the southern city off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever executed in the subcontinent, and then defeated the Pakistani team in the city off the back of another.

It is the English squad, too, that somehow end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings defeat even though the other team made a modest 326; who ended up being defeated in one of the finer contests ever played after making a confident decision in the initial batting effort against New Zealand, and then followed suit against Australia; who were thrashed by a huge margin in the Indian city, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of the Sri Lankan team's greatest victories. As a unit, they have achieved some of the most improbable victories, experienced some of the most embarrassing exits, made some of the surprising centuries, and secured some of the most surprising five-fers in the records of English cricket.

Regardless of how this historic contest concludes, they have been, in turn, incredible, outrageous, unconventional, exasperating, and entirely, unrepentantly, unashamedly entertaining.