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People rarely mention the last ball of the Ashes. That initial ball that's legendary. That errant delivery that flies to slip, that beautiful stroke for four, that dismissal, bowled him! Concluding moments? I needed to check. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to conclude a batting effort rout in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his one and only Test at the tail-end of a 30-over collapse in a 5-0 whitewash that's been plentiful in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery deflecting off Langer's shoulder for extras, the single four the Aussies achieve in a run chase they'll never get to make in 2005.

It separates between speculating how things will go, and knowing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the past ten years, the English Australian tours have finished in defeat, instead of with them. Andy Flower was dismissed as coach after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Silverwood was let go after a further defeat, in 2021-22. You can make a couple of teams out of England players who participated in their concluding Test match at the tail end of an tour to Australia during the last quarter-century, and additionally have a couple of men over to serve as reserves for both teams.

The current English side have not asserted to be overly concerned about outcomes. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the ODI squad before him, consistently states that whether or not a lofted drive is taken at the rope matters less as whether or not it was the correct choice to attempt it in the beginning, and during play he's quick to praise a delivery man who gives away boundaries so long as they help bring the team toward taking that following breakthrough. But then the key rationale Stokes tried to teach his team to play this way was so they would be in a superior situation to produce 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 seems like the outcome they cannot escape. It is this aggressive approach's critical moment. And there are an abundance of warnings of defeat in the English game for the team to avoid backlash if they do endure a further poor loss in the upcoming period. Stokes's approach has been predicated on proving everyone wrong, and the flipside is it seems that there are numerous observers 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 all ends up, but if we found pleasure along the way. A few years back, the English team were an thoroughly poor national side. They had been overcome in four straight contests and were lagging in the fifth one, against the Indian team, when it was postponed because of the pandemic. 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 India at the Oval, an innings and 14 runs to Australia at the MCG, A ten-wicket loss to the Caribbean side in the scenic location.

The team was soundly beaten by West Indies in Grenada in March 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as leader.

By the conclusion, after all those months of health protocols and isolation and restricted environments and repeated losses at the hands of everyone they played, they were practically the most miserable and careworn Test team England had ever fielded to a cricket field. So much of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the following period was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's experiences during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a period of mental health challenges. It was created to remind everyone that it was supposed to be enjoyable, if it was supposed to be anything at all.

That remains true now. Despite when the the historic series is on the line, and even if the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they tackle playing the game. Normal existence has a way of intruding, it can be challenging to remember the lessons we learn in our toughest times.

Presented is the English squad that peeled off consecutive run chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one summer against New Zealand; that scored 378 to defeat India that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a comprehensive victory in the host nation; that showed resilience to a tie after going 2-0 down in the the contest; that beat the Indian team in Hyderabad off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever performed in the the region, and then overcame the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a further exceptional performance.

This is the England team, too, that unexpectedly end up losing a Test by an large margin even though the opposition made a modest 326; who ended up losing one of the more exciting matches ever contested after making a cocksure declaration in the opening session against the Kiwis, and then did the same thing against the Aussies; who were soundly beaten by a massive 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the losing side of one of the Sri Lankan team's most notable triumphs. As a unit, they have secured some of the unlikeliest wins, endured some of the most embarrassing exits, made some of the unlikeliest tons, and secured some of the most remarkable exceptional bowling spells in the annals of the national sport.

Regardless of how this Ashes series shakes out, they have been, successively, incredible, outrageous, unconventional, frustrating, and totally, without regret, unashamedly enjoyable.