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Nobody talks about the last ball of the Ashes. It's the first that's renowned. That errant delivery that reaches the slip cordon, that cover drive for four, that dismissal, shattering the stumps! Last balls? I had to look them up. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings defeat in a inconsequential game in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his single Test at the fag-end of a 30-over collapse in a 5-0 whitewash that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison short ball deflecting off Langer's shoulder for extras, the only four the Australian team score in a pursuit they'll not attempt in 2005.

It distinguishes between wondering 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 visits to Australia have ended in ashes, instead of with them. Flower was removed as manager after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after a further defeat, in 2021-22. You can make a pair of XIs out of England players who featured in their final Test match at the back end of an Australian tour during the last quarter-century, and still have a several individuals over to act as substitutes for either side.

The current English side have never claimed to worry excessively about consequences. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the ODI squad before him, always says that regardless of whether a aerial shot is taken at the rope is secondary as whether or not it was the correct choice to attempt it in the outset, and while fielding he's pleased to applaud a bowler who allows scoring shots so long as they are bringing the team toward taking that following breakthrough. But then the primary motive Ben Stokes tried to instruct his squad to adopt this approach was so they would be in a more advantageous state to produce the kind of cricket he feels will succeed for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been preparing for so long, already feels like the conclusion they are bound to face. It is Bazball's critical moment. And there are too many “I told you so’s” in the national sport for the team to avoid backlash if they do experience another disappointing result in the next few weeks. Stokes's approach has been based on defying expectations, and the other side is it feels as if there are plenty of people who would be thrilled to be validated.

In light of this, it's a appropriate time to emphasize that the key issue is not only where this concludes, but regardless of whether we had fun along the way. Four years ago, England were an thoroughly poor sports team. They had been overcome in a quartet of successive tournaments and were trailing in the fifth one, against India, when it was postponed because of the pandemic. They had won only one Test match out of seventeen, and lost a dozen of them by embarrassing margins. A loss by eight wickets to New Zealand at Edgbaston, A 157-run loss to India at the the London ground, an an innings defeat to the Australians at the iconic ground, 10 wickets to the Windies in the scenic location.

The team was soundly beaten by the Windies in the island in the early part of 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as leader.

By the end, after all those periods of testing and preventive measures and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of each rival, they were practically the most dejected and weary Test team England had ever put on to a cricket field. So much of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have achieved in the years since was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' experiences during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a period of mental health challenges. It was created to make people recall that it was intended as fun, if it was meant to be anything.

It still is now. Although the Ashes is on the line, and even if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they tackle performing. Daily routines has a way of imposing, it can be hard to hold on to the insights we gain in our most difficult periods.

Here is the England team that secured back-to-back final innings pursuits of significant totals in one season against New Zealand; that scored 378 to overcome the Indian team that identical season; that became the first touring team to win a whitewash in the host nation; that fought back to a tie after going trailing by two matches in the the contest; that overcame India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever executed in the the region, and then beat the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a further exceptional performance.

It is the English squad, too, that managed to end up losing a Test by an innings even though the opposition made a relatively low total; who concluded losing one of the finer contests ever contested after making a bold declaration in the opening session against the Kiwis, and then followed suit against Australia; who were thrashed by a massive 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the wrong end of one of the Sri Lankan team's greatest victories. Collectively, they have recorded some of the unlikeliest wins, experienced some of the most embarrassing exits, scored some of the unlikeliest centuries, and secured some of the most startling exceptional bowling spells in the annals of the national sport.

Regardless of how this prestigious tournament concludes, they have been, successively, incredible, unbelievable, ridiculous, frustrating, and entirely, unapologetically, unapologetically thrilling.