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Few recall the concluding moment of the Ashes. That initial ball that's renowned. That wide that goes to the slips, that elegant shot for four, that wicket, shattering the stumps! Concluding moments? I needed to check. Ali cutting a stroke behind to finish an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his sole Test at the fag-end of a 30-over collapse in a comprehensive defeat that's been plentiful in 2014; a Harmison bouncer glancing off Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary the Australian team manage in a pursuit they'll not undertake in 2005.

It distinguishes between questioning how things will go, and understanding how they do. One certainty is, there's no guarantee there will be a happy ending. For the previous decade, England's trips Down Under have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower was removed as manager after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was let go after another, in 2021-22. You can make a couple of teams out of England players who featured in their final Test match at the conclusion of an tour to Australia during the last quarter-century, and additionally have a couple of men over to carry the drinks for both teams.

The current English side have never claimed to care too much about consequences. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, frequently remarks that whether or not a lifted stroke is caught on the boundary matters less as whether or not it was the proper call to attempt it in the outset, and while fielding he's quick to praise a bowler who gives away boundaries so long as they are bringing the team closer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the very reason Stokes tried to instruct his squad to adopt this approach was so they would be in a better position to execute the kind of cricket he feels will perform effectively for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been preparing for so long, 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 predictions of failure in the national sport for the team to avoid backlash if they do endure a further bad defeat in the upcoming period. His methodology has been based on defying expectations, and the other side is it appears there are plenty of people who would be thrilled to be proven correct.

Considering this, it's a suitable occasion to highlight that the crucial matter is not only where this concludes, but whether or not we had fun along the way. In the recent past, the English team were an utterly abject cricket team. They had been beaten in four consecutive series and were falling behind in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was suspended because of the pandemic. They had won a single Test match out of a series of 17, and lost a dozen of them by humiliating deficits. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at Edgbaston, A 157-run loss to India at the the famous stadium, an innings and 14 runs to Australia at Melbourne, A defeat by ten wickets to West Indies in the scenic location.

England were thrashed by West Indies in the island in spring 2022 just before Joe Root stepped down as leader.

By the final stage, after all those months of nasal swabs and isolation and biosecure bubbles and constant defeats at the hands of each rival, they were practically the most dejected and weary Test team the English cricket board had ever put on to a sports ground. So much of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the following period was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a bout of anxiety. It was intended to make people recall that it was intended as enjoyable, if it was meant to be anything at all.

It still is now. Despite when the the historic series is on the line, and even if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they approach competing. Normal existence has a way of imposing, it can be difficult to hold on to the knowledge we acquire in our toughest times.

This is the England team that peeled off successive run chases of significant totals in one summer against the Kiwis; that achieved a huge total to defeat the subcontinent giants that identical season; that became the first touring team to win a whitewash in the subcontinent country; that battled hard to a tie after going trailing by two matches in the the series; that overcame the Indian team in the historic venue off the back of one of the greatest innings ever played in the the region, and then beat the Pakistani team in the city off the back of another.

This is the England team, too, that unexpectedly end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings even though the opposition made a modest 326; who ended up losing one of the more exciting matches ever played after making a cocksure declaration in the first innings against the Kiwis, and then followed suit against Australia; who were soundly beaten by a huge margin in the venue, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of Sri Lanka's greatest victories. Between them, they have recorded some of the unlikeliest wins, endured some of the poorest performances, made some of the unlikeliest hundreds, and achieved some of the most surprising exceptional bowling spells in the history of English cricket.

However this prestigious tournament unfolds, they have been, one after another, amazing, unbelievable, absurd, infuriating, and entirely, without regret, boldly entertaining.