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People rarely mention the final delivery of the Ashes. It's the first that's famous. That wide that goes to the slips, that cover drive for four, that fallen stump, shattering the stumps! Final deliveries? I needed to check. Ali slicing a drive behind to conclude a batting effort defeat in a inconsequential game in 2015; Rankin being taken at slip off Harris, Boyd Rankin featuring in his single Test at the tail-end of a rapid downfall in a clean sweep that's been plentiful in 2014; a Harmison bouncer glancing off Justin Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary the Aussies score in a pursuit they'll never get to make in 2005.

It distinguishes between wondering how things will go, and seeing how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no certainty there will be a positive outcome. For the last decade, England's visits to Australia have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Flower was dismissed as manager after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was sacked after a further defeat, in 2021-22. One could assemble a couple of teams out of national team members who featured in their final Test match at the back end of an tour to Australia during the last quarter-century, and even have a few players over to carry the drinks for each squad.

Stokes' squad have never claimed to be overly concerned about consequences. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the ODI squad before him, frequently remarks that if a lofted drive is caught on the boundary isn't as important as whether it was the proper call to play it in the first place, and while fielding he's pleased to applaud a bowler who concedes runs so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that next wicket. But then the primary motive Stokes tried to instruct his squad to adopt this approach was so they would be in a superior situation to deliver the kind of cricket he thinks will do well for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been preparing for so long, already feels like the conclusion they cannot escape. It is this bold strategy's decisive moment. And there are too many “I told you so’s” in the national sport for the team to escape criticism if they do suffer another poor loss in the next few weeks. Stokes's approach has been predicated on challenging skeptics, and the flipside is it seems that there are numerous observers who would be pleased to be shown right.

Considering this, it's a suitable occasion to emphasize that the crucial matter goes beyond where this all ends up, but whether or not we had fun along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an completely dismal cricket team. They had been overcome in a quartet of successive tournaments and were falling behind in the final one, against India, when it was suspended because of the virus. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost a dozen of them by large defeats. Eight wickets to the Black Caps at the historic venue, A defeat by 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the famous stadium, an a comprehensive loss to the Australians at Melbourne, 10 wickets to the Windies in Grenada.

England were thrashed by the Windies in the island in March 2022 just before Root resigned as leader.

By the final stage, after all those months of nasal swabs and preventive measures and restricted environments and endless beatings at the hands of everyone they played, they were practically the most miserable and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever put on to a playing arena. A great deal of what Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the following period was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's experiences during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a period of mental health challenges. It was created to make people recall that it was supposed to be enjoyable, if it was supposed to be anything.

That remains true now. Even 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 performing. Normal existence has a way of imposing, it can be hard to remember the knowledge we acquire in our most difficult periods.

Presented is the English squad that peeled off consecutive fourth-innings chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one summer against the Black Caps; that scored a massive 378 to defeat the Indian team that identical season; that became the first touring team to win a whitewash in the host nation; that battled hard to a draw after going 2-0 down in the Ashes; that defeated the Indian team in Hyderabad off the back of one of the greatest innings ever executed in the the area, and then beat Pakistan in the city off the back of a subsequent one.

Here we have the English squad, too, that managed to end up losing a Test by an innings even though the opposition made only 326; who ended up being defeated in one of the more exciting matches ever staged after making a confident decision in the first innings against the Black Caps, and then repeated the action against Australia; who were soundly beaten by a huge margin in the Indian city, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of Sri Lanka's finest wins. Collectively, they have secured some of the most improbable victories, endured some of the ugliest dismissals, scored some of the surprising hundreds, and secured some of the most startling exceptional bowling spells in the history of the national sport.

Regardless of how this historic contest concludes, they have been, successively, astonishing, unbelievable, ridiculous, frustrating, and entirely, unapologetically, unashamedly thrilling.