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Nobody talks about the last ball of the Ashes. That initial ball that's renowned. That errant delivery that goes to the slips, that beautiful stroke for four, that wicket, bowled him! Final deliveries? I had to research them. Moeen Ali edging a shot behind to end an innings defeat in a dead rubber in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Boyd Rankin participating in his single Test at the fag-end of a 30-over collapse in a 5-0 whitewash that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison bouncer deflecting off Justin Langer's shoulder for extras, the only four the Aussies achieve in a pursuit they'll not undertake in 2005.

It distinguishes between wondering how things will go, and understanding how they do. One thing's certain, there's no assurance there will be a happy ending. For the past ten years, England's trips Down Under have ended in ashes, instead of with them. Andy Flower lost his job as head coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a pair of XIs out of England players who featured in their final Test match at the conclusion of an Australian tour during the past 25 years, and still have a several individuals over to serve as reserves for each squad.

Stokes' squad have not professed to be overly concerned about consequences. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, always says that regardless of whether a aerial shot is caught on the boundary isn't as important as whether or not it was the correct choice to play it in the outset, and in the field he's quick to praise a bowler who gives away boundaries so long as they are bringing the team closer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the key rationale Stokes tried to teach his team to follow this style was so they would be in a superior situation to execute the kind of cricket he thinks will succeed for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been preparing for so long, already appears as the result they cannot escape. It is Bazball's critical moment. And there are an abundance of “I told you so’s” in the English game for the team to escape criticism if they do suffer another bad defeat in the coming weeks. His methodology has been based on challenging skeptics, and the flipside is it seems that there are numerous observers who would be thrilled to be validated.

In light of this, it's a appropriate time to point out that the key issue isn't just where this all ends up, but regardless of whether we enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, England were an utterly abject national side. They had been overcome in four consecutive series and were lagging in the fifth one, against the Indian team, when it was postponed because of Covid. They had won exactly one Test match out of seventeen, and lost a dozen of them by embarrassing margins. Eight wickets to the Kiwis at the historic venue, 157 runs to the Indian squad at the Oval, an an innings defeat to Australia at the iconic ground, A defeat by ten wickets to the Windies in Grenada.

The English side was routed by the Caribbean team in the venue in March 2022 just before Joe Root stepped down as leader.

By the final stage, after all those periods of testing and preventive measures and restricted environments and repeated losses at the hands of each rival, they were virtually the most miserable and exhausted Test team the English cricket board had ever sent out to a cricket field. So much of what Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the years since was in a consequence of all that, as well as the former's experiences during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a series of panic attacks. It was intended to remind everyone that it was meant to be fun, if it was supposed to be something.

It still is now. Even when the the historic series is on the line, and regardless if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they go about competing. Everyday life has a way of intruding, it can be hard to retain the knowledge we acquire in our toughest times.

Here is the English squad that achieved successive final innings pursuits of significant totals in one period against New Zealand; that made 378 to overcome the Indian team that corresponding period; that became the pioneering away squad to win a whitewash in the host nation; that fought back to a stalemate after going 2-0 down in the the series; that overcame the Indian team in the historic venue off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever played in the subcontinent, and then beat the Pakistani team in Multan off the back of a subsequent one.

It is the England team, too, that somehow end up being defeated in a Test by an large margin even though the other team made a modest 326; who concluded being defeated in one of the more exciting matches ever played after making a confident decision in the opening session against the Black Caps, and then followed suit against the Australian team; who were thrashed by 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of the Sri Lankan team's finest wins. Between them, they have recorded some of the most improbable victories, endured some of the ugliest dismissals, achieved some of the surprising hundreds, and taken some of the most surprising five-fers in the annals of the national sport.

However this historic contest concludes, they have been, one after another, astonishing, outrageous, ridiculous, frustrating, and totally, without regret, unapologetically entertaining.