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Few recall the final delivery of the Ashes. It's the first that's renowned. That stray ball that goes to the slips, that beautiful stroke for four, that wicket, shattering the stumps! Last balls? I needed to check. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to finish an innings defeat in a dead rubber in 2015; Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Boyd Rankin featuring in his single Test at the conclusion of a 30-over collapse in a 5-0 whitewash that's been commonplace in 2014; a Harmison bouncer deflecting off Justin Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary the Aussies score in a target they'll not undertake in 2005.

It separates between questioning how things will go, and knowing how they do. One certainty is, there's no certainty there will be a happy ending. For the past ten years, England's trips Down Under have ended in ashes, rather than with them. Andy Flower was dismissed as manager after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was let go after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. You can make a pair of XIs out of national team members who played their last Test match at the conclusion of an Australian tour during the previous 25 years, and even have a couple of men over to act as substitutes for both teams.

This England team have not professed to worry excessively about results. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, consistently states that if a lifted stroke is taken at the rope is secondary as if it was the correct choice to attempt it in the beginning, and while fielding he's quick to praise a delivery man who allows scoring shots so long as they bringing the team toward taking that next wicket. But then the primary motive Ben Stokes tried to guide his players to play this way was so they would be in a better position to deliver the kind of cricket he feels will succeed for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been training rigorously, already seems like the result they are bound to face. It is Bazball's decisive moment. And there are an abundance of predictions of failure in the English game for the team to get away with it if they do endure a further poor loss in the coming weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on proving everyone wrong, and the flipside is it seems that there are plenty of people who would be pleased to be proven correct.

In light of this, it's a good moment to highlight that the key issue goes beyond where this ultimately leads, but if we found pleasure along the way. A few years back, England were an completely dismal cricket team. They had been defeated in four consecutive series and were falling behind in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was postponed because of the virus. They had won only one Test match out of a series of 17, and lost twelve of them by large defeats. Eight wickets to New Zealand at the Birmingham ground, A defeat by 157 runs to India at the the famous stadium, an an innings defeat to Australia at the iconic ground, A defeat by ten wickets to West Indies 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 months of testing and isolation and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of each rival, they were practically the most disheartened and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever sent out to a playing arena. A great deal of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the following period was in a consequence of all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a series of panic attacks. It was created to emphasize to all that it was meant to be entertaining, if it was supposed to be something.

That remains true now. Despite 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 tackle performing. Everyday life has a way of crowding in, it can be hard to remember the insights we gain in our toughest times.

Here is the England team that secured consecutive fourth-innings chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one summer against New Zealand; that made a huge total to overcome the subcontinent giants that identical season; that became the initial visiting side to win a whitewash in Pakistan; that showed resilience to a draw after going two games behind in the the series; that overcame the Indian team in Hyderabad off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever executed in the the area, and then defeated Pakistan in Multan off the back of a further exceptional performance.

This is the England team, too, that managed to end up being defeated in a Test by an innings defeat even though the other team made a relatively low total; who concluded losing one of the more exciting matches ever staged after making a cocksure declaration in the initial batting effort against New Zealand, and then did the same thing against the Aussies; who were thrashed by a huge margin in the Indian city, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of the Sri Lankan team's finest wins. Collectively, they have secured some of the surprising successes, experienced some of the poorest performances, made some of the surprising hundreds, and achieved some of the most startling five-fers in the annals of the national sport.

Regardless of how this historic contest unfolds, they have been, successively, amazing, unbelievable, ridiculous, frustrating, and totally, without regret, unapologetically thrilling.