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People rarely mention the last ball of the Ashes. That initial ball that's famous. That wide that reaches the slip cordon, that elegant shot for four, that wicket, shattering the stumps! Final deliveries? I needed to check. Ali edging a shot behind to finish an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin featuring in his sole Test at the conclusion of a quick disintegration in a clean sweep that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison bouncer glancing off Justin Langer's shoulder for runs, the only four the Aussies manage in a pursuit they'll not attempt in 2005.

It's the difference between questioning how things will go, and seeing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no certainty there will be a positive outcome. For the past ten years, the English visits to Australia have ended in ashes, instead of with them. Andy Flower lost his job as coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Silverwood was let go after a further defeat, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a couple of teams out of national team members who featured in their final Test match at the conclusion of an Australian tour during the past 25 years, and still have a several individuals over to serve as reserves for both teams.

The current English side have not professed to care too much about consequences. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, always says that regardless of whether a aerial shot is caught on the boundary matters less as whether or not it was the correct choice to play it in the outset, and while fielding he's quick to praise a delivery man who concedes runs so long as they help bring the team closer to taking that next wicket. But then the key rationale Ben Stokes tried to teach his team to play this way was so they would be in a better position to execute the kind of cricket he believes will perform effectively for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been planning extensively, already seems like the outcome they can't get away from. It is this aggressive approach's critical moment. And there are an abundance of warnings of defeat in English cricket for the team to get away with it if they do suffer another bad defeat in the next few weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on proving everyone wrong, and the flipside is it feels as if there are numerous observers who would be thrilled to be shown right.

In light of this, it's a good moment to point out that the important question isn't just where this concludes, but whether or not we enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an utterly abject sports team. They had been overcome in four consecutive series and were falling behind in the fifth one, against the Indian team, when it was postponed because of the pandemic. They had won exactly one Test match out of a series of 17, and lost 12 of them by humiliating deficits. A loss by eight wickets to the Black Caps at the Birmingham ground, A defeat by 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the Oval, an a comprehensive loss to the Australians at Melbourne, A ten-wicket loss to the Caribbean side in the scenic location.

The English side was routed by the Windies in Grenada in the early part of 2022 just before Root stepped down as skipper.

By the final stage, after all those periods of nasal swabs and social distancing and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of each rival, they were virtually the most dejected and exhausted Test team the English cricket board had ever fielded to a cricket field. A significant portion of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the subsequent years was in response to all that, as well as the former's experiences 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 intended as entertaining, if it was intended as something.

This continues to be the case now. Even when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and regardless if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they approach performing. Daily routines has a way of imposing, it can be hard to retain the insights we gain in our lowest moments.

Presented is the English squad that achieved successive final innings pursuits of 277, 299, and 296 in one season against New Zealand; that scored a massive 378 to beat the subcontinent giants that identical season; that became the pioneering away squad to win a whitewash in Pakistan; that fought back to a draw after going trailing by two matches in the Ashes; that defeated India in the historic venue off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever played in the the region, and then defeated Pakistan in the location off the back of another.

Here we have the national side, too, that managed to end up losing a Test by an large margin even though the other team made a modest 326; who ended up suffering a loss in one of the finer contests ever played after making a confident decision in the opening session against the Kiwis, and then repeated the action against the Australian team; who were thrashed by a huge margin in Rajkot, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of the island nation's finest wins. Collectively, they have secured some of the unlikeliest wins, suffered some of the ugliest dismissals, scored some of the surprising tons, and secured some of the most surprising five-wicket hauls in the history of English cricket.

However this historic contest shakes out, they have been, successively, astonishing, outrageous, ridiculous, exasperating, and entirely, unapologetically, unashamedly enjoyable.