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Nobody talks about the final delivery of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's legendary. That stray ball that goes to the slips, that cover drive for four, that wicket, clean bowled! Last balls? I had to research them. Ali cutting a stroke behind to finish an innings defeat in a inconsequential game in 2015; Boyd Rankin being taken at slip off Harris, Boyd Rankin featuring in his sole Test at the conclusion of a 30-over collapse in a clean sweep that's been plentiful in 2014; a Harmison short ball ricocheting away Justin Langer's shoulder for extras, the sole boundary the Aussies achieve in a target they'll not undertake 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 last decade, England's trips Down Under have ended in ashes, rather than with them. Flower lost his job as coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Silverwood was let go after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. One could assemble a couple of teams out of English cricketers who featured in their final Test match at the tail end of an trip Down Under during the past 25 years, and even have a few players over to act as substitutes for either side.

Stokes' squad have not asserted to be overly concerned about results. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, consistently states that regardless of whether a lofted drive is caught on the boundary isn't as important as whether it was the right decision to attempt it in the beginning, and in the field he's quick to praise a pitcher who gives away boundaries so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the primary motive Ben Stokes tried to instruct his squad to play this way was so they would be in a more advantageous state to produce the style of play he believes will do well for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been preparing for so long, already appears as the conclusion they can't get away from. It is this bold strategy's decisive moment. And there are too many predictions of failure in the national sport for the team to escape criticism if they do experience another bad defeat in the coming weeks. Stokes's approach has been based on challenging skeptics, and the flipside is it seems that there are plenty of people who would be delighted to be shown right.

Given that, it's a good moment to emphasize that the important question goes beyond where this concludes, but regardless of whether we enjoyed it along the way. In the recent past, England were an completely dismal national side. They had been beaten in four straight contests and were falling behind in the final one, against India, when it was suspended because of Covid. They had won exactly one Test match out of a series of 17, and lost a dozen of them by large defeats. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at Edgbaston, 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the the London ground, an a comprehensive loss to the Australians at Melbourne, A ten-wicket loss to the Windies in the island nation.

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

By the end, after all those periods of health protocols and social distancing and biosecure bubbles and constant defeats at the hands of everyone they played, they were practically the most dejected and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever fielded to a playing arena. A great deal of what Stokes and McCullum have accomplished in the subsequent years was in a consequence of all that, as well as the Stokes' personal encounters during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had endured a period of mental health challenges. It was designed to emphasize to all that it was supposed to be entertaining, if it was intended as anything.

That remains true now. Even when the Ashes is on the line, and although the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they tackle competing. Everyday life has a way of intruding, it can be hard to retain the lessons we learn in our most difficult periods.

This is the English squad that secured back-to-back fourth-innings chases of three challenging targets in one period against the Black Caps; that made a massive 378 to defeat the subcontinent giants that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a comprehensive victory in the subcontinent country; that showed resilience to a tie after going two games behind in the the contest; that overcame the Indian team in the historic venue off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever performed in the the area, and then overcame Pakistan in the city off the back of another.

This is the English squad, too, that somehow end up being defeated in a Test by an large margin even though the opposition made a modest 326; who concluded suffering a loss in one of the more exciting matches ever staged after making a confident decision in the opening session against the Black Caps, and then followed suit against Australia; who were soundly beaten by a massive 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the wrong end of one of the island nation's finest wins. As a unit, they have secured some of the surprising successes, experienced some of the poorest performances, scored some of the surprising centuries, and secured some of the most surprising five-wicket hauls in the annals of English cricket.

However this Ashes series concludes, they have been, one after another, astonishing, preposterous, ridiculous, frustrating, and totally, unapologetically, boldly enjoyable.