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Nobody talks about the last ball of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's famous. That stray ball that flies to slip, that beautiful stroke for four, that dismissal, bowled him! Concluding moments? I needed to check. Moeen Ali edging a shot behind to finish an innings loss in a dead rubber in 2015; Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Rankin featuring in his one and only Test at the tail-end of a rapid downfall in a clean sweep that's been commonplace in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for runs, the sole boundary the Australian team achieve in a run chase they'll not undertake in 2005.

It separates between questioning how things will go, and seeing how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no assurance there will be a successful conclusion. For the past ten years, England's trips Down Under have concluded in failure, rather than with them. Flower was dismissed as head coach after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Silverwood was sacked after a further defeat, in 2021-22. One could assemble a two lineups out of national team members who played their last 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 act as substitutes for both teams.

The current English side have not professed to care too much about consequences. Stokes, like Morgan with the ODI squad before him, frequently remarks that regardless of whether a aerial shot is grabbed near the fence matters less as if it was the proper call to execute it in the outset, and in the field he's happy to clap a delivery man who allows scoring shots so long as they help bring the team nearer to taking that subsequent dismissal. 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 style of play he thinks will do well for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been planning extensively, already feels like the result they are bound to face. It is this bold strategy's make or break moment. And there are too many predictions of failure in the national sport for the team to get away with it if they do suffer another bad defeat in the next few weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on proving everyone wrong, and the counterpart is it feels as if there are many individuals who would be thrilled to be proven correct.

Considering this, it's a suitable occasion to highlight that the crucial matter isn't just where this concludes, but regardless of whether we enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an thoroughly poor national side. They had been beaten in four consecutive series and were lagging in the fifth, against the Indian team, when it was postponed because of the pandemic. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost a dozen of them by large defeats. A loss by eight wickets to New Zealand at Edgbaston, A 157-run loss to the Indian squad at the the famous stadium, an an innings defeat to Australia at the iconic ground, 10 wickets to the Windies in the island nation.

The team was soundly beaten by the Caribbean team in the venue in March 2022 just before Root resigned as skipper.

By the final stage, after all those periods of nasal swabs and isolation and restricted environments and endless beatings 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 great deal of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have done in the following period was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' individual trials during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a bout of anxiety. It was designed to emphasize to all that it was intended as entertaining, if it was supposed to be anything at all.

This continues to be the case now. Even when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and regardless if the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they tackle playing the game. Normal existence has a way of intruding, it can be hard to remember the lessons we learn in our lowest moments.

Here is the national side that secured consecutive final innings pursuits of significant totals in one season against the Kiwis; that scored 378 to beat the Indian team that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a comprehensive victory in Pakistan; that showed resilience to a tie after going 2-0 down in the Ashes; that defeated India in the historic venue off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever performed in the the region, and then overcame Pakistan in Multan off the back of another.

Here we have the English squad, too, that managed to end up being defeated in a Test by an large margin even though the other team made a relatively low total; who concluded losing one of the more exciting matches ever played after making a cocksure declaration in the first innings against New Zealand, and then repeated the action against Australia; who were soundly beaten by a huge margin in Rajkot, and who were on the losing side of one of Sri Lanka's finest wins. Between them, they have recorded some of the most improbable victories, suffered some of the most embarrassing exits, scored some of the most improbable centuries, and secured some of the most startling five-fers in the records of English cricket.

No matter how this historic contest concludes, they have been, in turn, astonishing, preposterous, unconventional, exasperating, and entirely, unapologetically, boldly enjoyable.