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Few recall the concluding moment of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's renowned. That wide that reaches the slip cordon, that cover drive for four, that wicket, bowled him! Final deliveries? I had to look them up. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being caught in the slips off Harris, Rankin participating in his one and only Test at the conclusion of a rapid downfall in a 5-0 whitewash that's been plentiful in 2014; a Steve Harmison bouncer glancing off Langer's shoulder for runs, the only four the Australian team achieve in a target they'll not attempt in 2005.

It's the difference between speculating how things will go, and understanding how they do. One certainty is, there's no certainty there will be a positive outcome. For the last decade, England's trips Down Under have concluded in failure, rather than with them. Andy Flower lost his job as manager after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after another, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a couple of teams out of national team members who featured in their final Test match at the conclusion of an tour to Australia during the previous 25 years, and additionally have a couple of men over to carry the drinks for each squad.

Stokes' squad have never claimed to be overly concerned about results. Stokes, like Morgan with the one-day side before him, frequently remarks that regardless of whether a aerial shot is caught on the boundary is secondary as whether or not it was the proper call to attempt it in the first place, and while fielding he's quick to praise a bowler who concedes runs so long as they are bringing the team toward taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the key rationale Stokes tried to instruct his squad to adopt this approach was so they would be in a more advantageous state to execute the kind of cricket he thinks will do well for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been preparing for so long, already appears as the result they are bound to face. It is Bazball's decisive moment. And there are too many warnings of defeat in the English game for the team to get away with it if they do suffer another bad defeat in the coming weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on defying expectations, and the flipside is it seems that there are numerous observers who would be pleased to be proven correct.

Considering this, it's a good moment to point out that the crucial matter goes beyond where this all ends up, but whether or not we enjoyed it along the way. In the recent past, England were an utterly abject sports team. They had been overcome in four consecutive series and were trailing in the fifth, against the Indian team, when it was halted because of the pandemic. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost twelve of them by humiliating deficits. Eight wickets to New Zealand at the historic venue, A defeat by 157 runs to India at the Oval, an an innings defeat to the Aussie team at the iconic ground, 10 wickets to the Caribbean side in the island nation.

The English side was routed by West Indies in the venue in the early part of 2022 just before Root stepped aside as captain.

By the end, after all those periods of testing and isolation and biosecure bubbles and repeated losses at the hands of all opponents, they were just about the most dejected and careworn Test team England had ever fielded to a playing arena. A significant portion of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have accomplished in the years since was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' experiences during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to make people recall that it was intended as fun, if it was supposed to be anything.

This continues to be the case now. Despite when the Ashes is on the line, and although the team have finally recognized that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they go about performing. Everyday life has a way of crowding in, it can be hard to hold on to the lessons we learn in our lowest moments.

Here is the English squad that secured consecutive final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one summer against the Kiwis; that achieved a massive 378 to overcome the subcontinent giants that same summer; that became the initial visiting side to win a clean sweep in Pakistan; that showed resilience to a draw after going two games behind in the Ashes; that overcame India in the southern city off the back of one of the greatest innings ever executed in the the region, and then beat the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a further exceptional performance.

Here we have the national side, too, that managed to end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings defeat even though the opposition made only 326; who fetched up losing one of the more exciting matches ever played after making a cocksure declaration in the initial batting effort against the Kiwis, and then repeated the action against the Aussies; who were thrashed by a huge margin in Rajkot, and who were on the losing side of one of the Sri Lankan team's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have secured some of the most improbable victories, experienced some of the ugliest dismissals, scored some of the most improbable hundreds, and secured some of the most startling exceptional bowling spells in the records of English cricket.

Regardless of how this prestigious tournament unfolds, they have been, in turn, amazing, unbelievable, absurd, infuriating, and totally, without regret, unapologetically entertaining.