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Nobody talks about the concluding moment of the Ashes. It's the first that's legendary. That wide that reaches the slip cordon, that beautiful stroke for four, that wicket, bowled him! Last balls? I had to look them up. Ali edging a shot behind to end an innings rout in a meaningless match in 2015; Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Rankin participating in his one and only Test at the conclusion of a 30-over collapse in a comprehensive defeat that's been full of them in 2014; a Steve Harmison short ball glancing off Justin Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary the Aussies score in a pursuit they'll not attempt in 2005.

It separates between speculating how things will go, and seeing how they do. One certainty is, there's no assurance there will be a positive outcome. For the past ten years, the English visits to Australia have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower was dismissed as manager after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was let go after a further defeat, in 2021-22. One could assemble a couple of teams out of national team members who played their last Test match at the conclusion of an Australian tour during the last quarter-century, and still 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 outcomes. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, frequently remarks that whether or not a lofted drive is grabbed near the fence is secondary as whether or not it was the right decision to execute it in the first place, and while fielding he's quick to praise a bowler who gives away boundaries so long as they are bringing the team toward taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the very reason Stokes tried to teach his team to play this way was so they would be in a better position to execute the style of play he thinks will succeed for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been planning extensively, already feels like the outcome they are bound to face. It is Bazball's decisive moment. And there are numerous warnings of defeat in the English game for the team to avoid backlash if they do experience another poor loss in the next few weeks. His methodology has been predicated on proving everyone wrong, and the flipside is it seems that there are plenty of people who would be pleased to be shown right.

In light of this, it's a suitable occasion to highlight that the important question goes beyond where this all ends up, but whether or not we enjoyed it along the way. In the recent past, the English team were an thoroughly poor national side. They had been defeated in four straight contests and were lagging in the final one, against India, when it was suspended because of Covid. They had won a single Test match out of a series of 17, and lost a dozen of them by humiliating deficits. Eight wickets to New Zealand at the historic venue, 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the the famous stadium, an an innings defeat to the Aussie team at Melbourne, 10 wickets 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 Root stepped aside as captain.

By the final stage, after all those periods of health protocols and isolation and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of all opponents, they were practically the most dejected and weary Test team England had ever fielded to a playing arena. So much of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the years since was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's individual trials during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a period of mental health challenges. It was designed to make people recall that it was supposed to be enjoyable, if it was supposed to be anything.

It still is now. Even when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and although the team have finally recognized that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they approach competing. Everyday life has a way of intruding, it can be challenging to hold on to the insights we gain in our lowest moments.

Here is the national side that secured consecutive final innings pursuits of 277, 299, and 296 in one period against the Black Caps; that scored 378 to beat the subcontinent giants that identical season; that became the initial visiting side to win a whitewash in the subcontinent country; that showed resilience to a stalemate after going trailing by two matches in the the contest; that defeated the Indian team in Hyderabad off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever played in the subcontinent, and then overcame the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a further exceptional performance.

This is the England team, too, that somehow end up losing a Test by an innings defeat even though the rivals made a relatively low total; who fetched up being defeated in one of the better Tests ever contested after making a confident decision in the opening session against the Black Caps, and then repeated the action against the Australian team; who were routed by a huge margin in Rajkot, and who were on the wrong end of one of Sri Lanka's finest wins. Between them, they have achieved some of the surprising successes, suffered some of the most embarrassing exits, scored some of the surprising centuries, and secured some of the most surprising five-fers in the annals of the national sport.

However this historic contest shakes out, they have been, one after another, incredible, preposterous, ridiculous, frustrating, and totally, unapologetically, boldly entertaining.