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Few recall the final delivery of the Ashes. It's the first that's famous. That wide that reaches the slip cordon, that elegant shot for four, that dismissal, clean bowled! Final deliveries? I had to look them up. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Rankin participating in his one and only Test at the tail-end of a 30-over collapse in a clean sweep that's been plentiful in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery glancing off Langer's shoulder for extras, the sole boundary Australia manage in a pursuit they'll never get to make in 2005.

It's the difference between questioning how things will go, and seeing how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the last decade, England's trips Down Under have concluded in failure, rather than with them. Flower was removed as manager after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was let go after another, in 2021-22. One could assemble a pair of XIs out of national team members who featured in their final Test match at the tail end of an trip Down Under during the past 25 years, and even have a several individuals over to carry the drinks for each squad.

This England team have never claimed to worry excessively about results. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the one-day side 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 first place, and while fielding he's quick to praise a bowler who allows scoring shots so long as they help bring the team toward taking that following breakthrough. But then the primary motive Stokes tried to guide his players to play this way was so they would be in a superior situation to execute the style of play he thinks will do well for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been preparing for so long, already seems like the result they are bound to face. It is this bold strategy's critical moment. And there are too many predictions of failure in English cricket for the team to escape criticism if they do suffer another poor loss in the next few weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on proving everyone wrong, and the flipside is it appears there are plenty of people who would be thrilled to be proven correct.

Given that, it's a suitable occasion to emphasize that the crucial matter is not only where this concludes, but if we had fun along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an utterly abject national side. They had been overcome in four consecutive series and were trailing in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was suspended because of Covid. They had won exactly one Test match out of seventeen, and lost twelve of them by embarrassing margins. An eight-wicket defeat to the Black Caps at the historic venue, A defeat by 157 runs to India at the Oval, an a comprehensive loss to the Australians at Melbourne, 10 wickets to West Indies in the island nation.

England were thrashed by West Indies in the venue in spring 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as leader.

By the conclusion, after all those months of testing and preventive measures and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of all opponents, they were just about the most disheartened and weary Test team England had ever sent out to a playing arena. So much of what Stokes and McCullum have done in the following period was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' 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 supposed to be enjoyable, if it was intended as something.

It still is now. Although the the historic series is on the line, and although the team have finally recognized that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they tackle performing. Everyday life has a way of intruding, it can be hard to retain the lessons we learn in our toughest times.

Here is the national side that secured successive fourth-innings chases of significant totals in one summer against the Black Caps; that achieved a massive 378 to overcome the Indian team that identical season; that became the pioneering away squad to win a clean sweep in the subcontinent country; that showed resilience to a stalemate after going two games behind in the Ashes; that overcame India in the historic venue off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever executed in the the area, and then overcame the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a further exceptional performance.

Here we have the national side, too, that unexpectedly end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an large margin even though the other team made a relatively low total; who ended up being defeated in one of the finer contests ever played after making a bold declaration in the initial batting effort against New Zealand, and then did the same thing against the Aussies; who were soundly beaten by a massive 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the wrong end of one of the island nation's greatest victories. Between them, they have recorded some of the most improbable victories, suffered some of the most embarrassing exits, achieved some of the most improbable centuries, and taken some of the most remarkable exceptional bowling spells in the annals of English cricket.

Regardless of how this Ashes series shakes out, they have been, one after another, astonishing, unbelievable, unconventional, frustrating, and totally, unrepentantly, unapologetically thrilling.