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Few recall the last ball of the Ashes. It's the first that's famous. That errant delivery that flies to slip, that elegant shot for four, that wicket, shattering the stumps! Concluding moments? I needed to check. Ali edging a shot behind to conclude a batting effort loss in a inconsequential game in 2015; Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a 30-over collapse in a 5-0 whitewash that's been full of them in 2014; a Steve Harmison bouncer deflecting off Langer's shoulder for extras, the sole boundary the Australian team manage in a run chase they'll not attempt in 2005.

It distinguishes between wondering how things will go, and understanding how they do. One certainty is, there's no certainty there will be a happy ending. For the past ten years, the English trips Down Under have finished in defeat, rather than with them. Andy Flower was removed as manager after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after a further defeat, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a two lineups out of English cricketers who played their last Test match at the tail end of an trip Down Under during the previous 25 years, and even have a couple of men over to serve as reserves for both teams.

Stokes' squad have not professed to care too much about outcomes. Stokes, like Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, always says that whether or not a aerial shot is taken at the rope is secondary as whether or not it was the right decision to play it in the beginning, and while fielding he's pleased to applaud a pitcher who allows scoring shots so long as they help bring the team closer to taking that next wicket. But then the primary motive Ben Stokes tried to instruct his squad to follow this style was so they would be in a superior situation to deliver the brand of the game he feels will do well for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been preparing for so long, already feels like the conclusion they cannot escape. 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 get away with it if they do endure a further disappointing result in the coming weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on defying expectations, and the counterpart is it appears there are numerous observers who would be pleased to be proven correct.

Considering this, it's a appropriate time to point out that the crucial matter goes beyond where this ultimately leads, but regardless of whether we enjoyed it along the way. In the recent past, England were an utterly abject national side. They had been defeated in four consecutive series and were lagging in the fifth one, against the Indian team, when it was suspended because of the pandemic. They had won only one Test match out of a series of 17, and lost 12 of them by embarrassing margins. A loss by eight wickets to New Zealand at the historic venue, 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the the famous stadium, an innings and 14 runs to Australia at the iconic ground, A ten-wicket loss to the Caribbean side in Grenada.

The team was soundly beaten by the Windies in the island in spring 2022 just before Joe Root resigned as skipper.

By the final stage, after all those months of testing and isolation and restricted environments and repeated losses at the hands of each rival, they were just about the most dejected and careworn Test team England had ever fielded to a playing arena. So much of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have accomplished 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 endured a series of panic attacks. It was designed to remind everyone that it was intended as enjoyable, if it was intended as anything at all.

This continues to be the case now. Although 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 competing. Daily routines has a way of imposing, it can be difficult to retain the insights we gain in our lowest moments.

Here is the national side that achieved consecutive run chases of three challenging targets in one period against New Zealand; that scored 378 to defeat the subcontinent giants that corresponding period; that became the initial visiting side to win a whitewash in the host nation; that battled hard to a stalemate after going trailing by two matches in the Ashes; that overcame the Indian team in the historic venue off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever performed in the subcontinent, and then overcame the Pakistani team in the city off the back of a subsequent one.

Here we have the national side, too, that unexpectedly end up losing a Test by an innings even though the other team made a relatively low total; who fetched up losing one of the better Tests ever staged after making a bold declaration in the initial batting effort against the Kiwis, and then did the same thing against the Australian team; who were routed by 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the losing side of one of Sri Lanka's greatest victories. As a unit, they have achieved some of the most improbable victories, suffered some of the most embarrassing exits, scored some of the surprising tons, and achieved some of the most remarkable five-wicket hauls in the history of the national sport.

Regardless of how this historic contest concludes, they have been, one after another, amazing, outrageous, absurd, frustrating, and entirely, unapologetically, unapologetically thrilling.