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Nobody talks about the final delivery of the Ashes. It's the first that's legendary. That stray ball that goes to the slips, that beautiful stroke for four, that fallen stump, clean bowled! Final deliveries? I had to research them. Ali cutting a stroke behind to end an innings loss in a meaningless match in 2015; Rankin being caught in the slips off Ryan Harris, Rankin featuring in his single Test at the conclusion of a 30-over collapse in a 5-0 whitewash that's been full of them in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for runs, the only four Australia score in a run chase they'll not attempt in 2005.

It distinguishes between wondering how things will go, and seeing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no certainty there will be a happy ending. For the previous decade, the English visits to Australia have ended in ashes, instead of with them. Flower was dismissed as manager after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Silverwood was let go after another, in 2021-22. One could assemble a couple of teams out of England players who featured in their final Test match at the tail end of an trip Down Under during the past 25 years, and additionally have a few players over to act as substitutes for either side.

This England team have never claimed to be overly concerned about results. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the one-day side before him, always says that regardless of whether a aerial shot is taken at the rope isn't as important as whether it was the proper call to play it in the first place, and in the field he's pleased to applaud a pitcher who allows scoring shots so long as they help bring the team toward taking that following breakthrough. But then the very reason Stokes tried to teach his team to adopt this approach was so they would be in a more advantageous state to produce the kind of cricket he believes will succeed for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been training rigorously, already appears as the result they cannot escape. It is Bazball's critical moment. And there are numerous “I told you so’s” in the English game for the team to avoid backlash if they do endure a further bad defeat in the upcoming period. The captain's strategy has been founded on defying expectations, and the counterpart is it appears there are many individuals who would be pleased to be proven correct.

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 enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an utterly abject cricket team. They had been defeated in four straight contests and were lagging in the final one, against India, when it was halted because of Covid. They had won only one Test match out of seventeen, and lost twelve of them by embarrassing margins. Eight wickets to New Zealand at Edgbaston, A defeat by 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the London ground, an an innings defeat to Australia at the iconic ground, A ten-wicket loss to the Caribbean side in the island nation.

England were thrashed by the Windies in the venue in the early part of 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as captain.

By the end, after all those periods of nasal swabs and isolation and biosecure bubbles and repeated losses at the hands of everyone they played, they were virtually the most miserable and weary Test team England had ever fielded to a cricket field. So much of what Stokes and McCullum have done in the subsequent years was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' personal encounters during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had endured a series of panic attacks. It was designed to remind everyone that it was intended as enjoyable, if it was supposed to be anything.

It still is now. Despite when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and even if the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they tackle competing. Daily routines has a way of crowding in, it can be difficult to hold on to the insights we gain in our toughest times.

This is the national side that secured successive fourth-innings chases of three challenging targets in one season against the Black Caps; that made a huge total to defeat the Indian team that same summer; that became the initial visiting side to win a whitewash in Pakistan; that showed resilience to a tie after going 2-0 down in the the series; that overcame India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever played in the the region, and then overcame the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a further exceptional performance.

This is the England team, too, that managed to end up being defeated in a Test by an innings defeat even though the rivals made a relatively low total; who fetched up losing one of the more exciting matches ever contested after making a confident decision in the first innings against the Black Caps, and then did the same thing against Australia; who were thrashed by 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the losing side of one of the island nation's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have recorded some of the most improbable victories, suffered some of the ugliest dismissals, scored some of the unlikeliest centuries, and achieved some of the most surprising exceptional bowling spells in the annals of English cricket.

No matter how this prestigious tournament unfolds, they have been, one after another, amazing, unbelievable, absurd, exasperating, and completely, unrepentantly, unashamedly enjoyable.