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Nobody talks about the final delivery of the Ashes. It's the first that's legendary. That wide that reaches the slip cordon, that beautiful stroke for four, that dismissal, clean bowled! Concluding moments? I had to look them up. Moeen Ali cutting a stroke behind to conclude a batting effort loss in a inconsequential game in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a rapid downfall in a 5-0 whitewash that's been commonplace in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery deflecting off Justin Langer's shoulder for extras, the only four the Aussies manage in a run chase they'll never get to make in 2005.

It's the difference between questioning how things will go, and understanding how they do. One thing's certain, there's no assurance there will be a successful conclusion. For the past ten years, the English visits to Australia have ended in ashes, instead of with them. Flower was removed as head coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after a further defeat, in 2021-22. You can make a couple of teams out of England players who played their last Test match at the tail end of an Australian tour during the past 25 years, and even have a few players over to act as substitutes for both teams.

The current English side have not professed to be overly concerned about consequences. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the ODI squad before him, consistently states that if a lofted drive is grabbed near the fence isn't as important as whether it was the proper call to execute it in the outset, and during play he's happy to clap a bowler who gives away boundaries so long as they are bringing the team nearer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the primary motive Ben Stokes tried to teach his team to follow this style was so they would be in a better position to deliver the brand of the game he thinks will perform effectively for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been planning extensively, already feels like the result they can't get away from. It is this aggressive approach's critical moment. And there are numerous “I told you so’s” in the English game for the team to avoid backlash if they do experience another poor loss in the coming weeks. The captain's strategy has been predicated on challenging skeptics, and the other side is it feels as if there are many individuals who would be pleased to be validated.

In light of this, it's a suitable occasion to emphasize that the important question isn't just where this ultimately leads, but whether or not we enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an thoroughly poor sports team. They had been beaten in four consecutive series and were lagging in the fifth one, against India, when it was postponed because of Covid. They had won only one Test match out of a series of 17, and lost 12 of them by large defeats. A loss by eight wickets to the Black Caps at the Birmingham ground, 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the the famous stadium, an an innings defeat to the Aussie team at the iconic ground, A ten-wicket loss to the Caribbean side in the island nation.

The team was soundly beaten by the Windies in the island in March 2022 just before Joe Root stepped down as captain.

By the final stage, after all those periods of testing and social distancing and biosecure bubbles and constant defeats at the hands of all opponents, they were practically the most dejected and weary Test team England had ever put on to a sports ground. A significant portion of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the following period was in response to all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had endured a series of panic attacks. It was created to make people recall that it was meant to be fun, if it was intended as anything at all.

This continues to be the case now. Even when the Ashes 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 go about competing. Everyday life has a way of crowding in, it can be hard to remember the lessons we learn in our lowest moments.

Here is the England team that achieved successive fourth-innings chases of significant totals in one season against New Zealand; that scored 378 to defeat the subcontinent giants that same summer; that became the initial visiting side to win a comprehensive victory in the subcontinent country; that fought back to a draw after going 2-0 down in the Ashes; that defeated India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the greatest innings ever played in the the region, and then beat Pakistan in the city off the back of a further exceptional performance.

Here we have the England team, too, that somehow end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings defeat even though the opposition made a relatively low total; who ended up suffering a loss in one of the better Tests ever played after making a bold declaration in the first innings against the Kiwis, and then followed suit against the Australian team; who were routed by a massive 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the losing side of one of Sri Lanka's greatest victories. Between them, they have recorded some of the surprising successes, endured some of the poorest performances, achieved some of the surprising hundreds, and taken some of the most startling exceptional bowling spells in the history of the English game.

Regardless of how this historic contest unfolds, they have been, one after another, astonishing, outrageous, absurd, infuriating, and entirely, unrepentantly, boldly enjoyable.