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Nobody talks about the last ball of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's legendary. That wide that goes to the slips, that elegant shot for four, that wicket, clean bowled! Last balls? I had to look them up. Moeen Ali cutting a stroke behind to finish an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin participating in his one and only Test at the conclusion of a 30-over collapse in a clean sweep that's been commonplace in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery glancing off Justin Langer's shoulder for runs, the only four Australia score in a pursuit they'll not attempt in 2005.

It's the difference between wondering how things will go, and seeing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no guarantee there will be a happy ending. For the previous decade, England's trips Down Under have finished in defeat, instead of with them. Andy Flower lost his job as coach after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Silverwood was let go after a further defeat, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a pair of XIs out of English cricketers who featured in their final Test match at the back end of an trip Down Under during the past 25 years, and even have a few players over to carry the drinks for both teams.

Stokes' squad have never claimed to be overly concerned about consequences. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the ODI squad before him, always says that if a aerial shot is grabbed near the fence isn't as important as whether or not it was the right decision to execute it in the beginning, and while fielding he's quick to praise a delivery man who gives away boundaries so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the key rationale Ben Stokes tried to instruct his squad to follow this style was so they would be in a better position to deliver the style of play he feels will succeed for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been preparing for so long, already feels like the outcome they cannot escape. It is Bazball's critical moment. And there are too many predictions of failure in English cricket for the team to escape criticism if they do experience another disappointing result in the coming weeks. His methodology has been predicated on defying expectations, and the flipside is it feels as if there are many individuals who would be pleased to be proven correct.

Given that, it's a good moment to point out that the crucial matter goes beyond where this ultimately leads, but if we enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an thoroughly poor sports team. They had been defeated in a quartet of successive tournaments and were trailing in the fifth one, against India, when it was suspended because of the pandemic. They had won a single Test match out of seventeen, and lost a dozen of them by large defeats. An eight-wicket defeat to the Black Caps at Edgbaston, A 157-run loss to the Indian squad at the the London ground, 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 the venue in the early part of 2022 just before Root resigned as captain.

By the final stage, after all those periods of testing and preventive measures and restricted environments and repeated losses at the hands of all opponents, they were just about the most miserable and exhausted Test team the English cricket board had ever sent out to a sports ground. So much of what Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the following period was in response to all that, as well as the Stokes' individual trials during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had endured a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to emphasize to all that it was supposed to be fun, if it was meant to be anything at all.

That remains true now. Although the Ashes is on the line, and although the team have finally recognized that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they tackle performing. Normal existence has a way of intruding, it can be hard to remember the insights we gain in our lowest moments.

This is the national side that secured successive run chases of three challenging targets in one summer against the Kiwis; that achieved a huge total to defeat the subcontinent giants that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a comprehensive victory in the subcontinent country; that battled hard to a stalemate after going 2-0 down in the the series; that overcame the Indian team in the southern city off the back of one of the greatest innings ever played in the the region, and then overcame Pakistan in the city off the back of a further exceptional performance.

This is the national side, too, that somehow end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings defeat even though the opposition made a relatively low total; who ended up suffering a loss in one of the more exciting matches ever played after making a cocksure declaration in the first innings against the Black Caps, and then did the same thing against the Aussies; who were routed by a massive 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the wrong end of one of the island nation's most notable triumphs. As a unit, they have secured some of the unlikeliest wins, experienced some of the ugliest dismissals, scored some of the unlikeliest tons, and achieved some of the most startling exceptional bowling spells in the history of the English game.

No matter how this Ashes series concludes, they have been, in turn, amazing, outrageous, absurd, frustrating, and completely, without regret, boldly thrilling.