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Nobody talks about the final delivery of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's legendary. That stray ball that goes to the slips, that elegant shot for four, that fallen stump, bowled him! Final deliveries? I needed to check. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to conclude a batting effort loss in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being caught in the slips off Harris, Rankin featuring in his single Test at the fag-end of a quick disintegration in a comprehensive defeat that's been plentiful in 2014; a Harmison bouncer ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary the Aussies achieve in a target they'll never get to make in 2005.

It separates between speculating how things will go, and understanding how they do. One certainty is, there's no assurance there will be a positive outcome. For the last decade, England's visits to Australia have finished in defeat, rather than with them. Andy Flower lost his job as manager after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was let go after another, in 2021-22. You can make a couple of teams out of national team members who featured in their final Test match at the tail end of an trip Down Under during the previous 25 years, and additionally have a couple of men over to carry the drinks for each squad.

This England team have not asserted to be overly concerned about results. Stokes, like Morgan with the ODI squad before him, frequently remarks that if a aerial shot is taken at the rope matters less as whether it was the correct choice to attempt it in the first place, and during play he's pleased to applaud a delivery man who allows scoring shots so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the very reason Ben Stokes tried to guide his players to play this way was so they would be in a more advantageous state to produce the brand of the game he believes will succeed for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been preparing for so long, already feels like the outcome they can't get away from. It is Bazball's critical moment. And there are an abundance of predictions of failure in the national sport for the team to get away with it if they do suffer another disappointing result in the next few weeks. His methodology has been predicated on defying expectations, and the flipside is it appears there are numerous observers who would be thrilled to be shown right.

Given that, it's a good moment to highlight that the important question is not only where this all ends up, but if we had fun along the way. A few years back, England were an completely dismal cricket team. They had been overcome in four consecutive series and were trailing in the fifth, against India, when it was halted because of the pandemic. They had won a single Test match out of seventeen, and lost 12 of them by humiliating deficits. Eight wickets to New Zealand at the historic venue, A defeat by 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the the London ground, an a comprehensive loss to Australia at the MCG, 10 wickets to the Windies in the scenic location.

England were thrashed by West Indies in Grenada in spring 2022 just before Root resigned as captain.

By the end, after all those periods of health protocols and social distancing and restricted environments and endless beatings at the hands of each rival, they were virtually the most miserable and weary Test team England had ever sent out to a cricket field. A significant portion of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the subsequent years was in a consequence of all that, as well as the Stokes' experiences during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a bout of anxiety. It was designed to remind everyone that it was supposed to be entertaining, if it was meant to be anything at all.

That remains true now. Even when the Ashes is on the line, and although the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they go about performing. Everyday life has a way of crowding in, it can be hard to hold on to the lessons we learn in our most difficult periods.

Here is the English squad that peeled off back-to-back fourth-innings chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one season against the Black Caps; that achieved a huge total to overcome the Indian team that identical season; that became the pioneering away squad to win a clean sweep in the subcontinent country; that fought back to a tie after going 2-0 down in the Ashes; that overcame India in the historic venue off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever executed in the the area, and then defeated the Pakistani team in the city off the back of another.

Here we have the national side, too, that somehow end up being defeated in a Test by an innings even though the other team made only 326; who fetched up being defeated in one of the finer contests ever played after making a confident decision in the opening session against the Black Caps, and then repeated the action against the Aussies; who were routed by 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of Sri Lanka's most notable triumphs. As a unit, they have achieved some of the most improbable victories, suffered some of the poorest performances, made some of the unlikeliest centuries, and taken some of the most startling five-fers in the history of the national sport.

Regardless of how this prestigious tournament shakes out, they have been, successively, amazing, unbelievable, absurd, frustrating, and totally, unrepentantly, unapologetically thrilling.