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Few recall the concluding moment of the Ashes. That initial ball that's famous. That errant delivery that flies to slip, that cover drive for four, that wicket, clean bowled! Final deliveries? I had to look them up. Ali edging a shot behind to finish an innings loss in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being caught in the slips off Harris, Boyd Rankin featuring in his sole Test at the fag-end of a quick disintegration in a comprehensive defeat that's been commonplace in 2014; a Harmison short ball ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for extras, the only four the Australian team manage in a pursuit they'll never get to make in 2005.

It's the difference between speculating how things will go, and seeing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no assurance there will be a happy ending. For the previous decade, England's visits to Australia have concluded in failure, instead of with them. Flower was dismissed as head coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Silverwood was let go after a further defeat, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a couple of teams out of national team members who featured in their final Test match at the tail end of an tour to Australia during the last quarter-century, and even have a few players over to serve as reserves for either side.

This England team have not asserted to be overly concerned about consequences. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the one-day side before him, consistently states that if a lofted drive is taken at the rope matters less as if it was the correct choice to attempt it in the outset, and during play he's quick to praise a delivery man who gives away boundaries so long as they bringing the team toward taking that next wicket. But then the key rationale Ben Stokes tried to instruct his squad to play this way was so they would be in a better position to execute the style of play he thinks will succeed for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been planning extensively, already seems like the result they cannot escape. It is Bazball's decisive moment. And there are an abundance of warnings of defeat in English cricket for the team to escape criticism if they do endure a further bad defeat in the upcoming period. His methodology has been based on challenging skeptics, and the flipside is it seems that there are many individuals who would be thrilled to be shown right.

In light of this, it's a good moment to point out that the important question goes beyond where this all ends up, but if we enjoyed it along the way. In the recent past, England were an completely dismal sports team. They had been overcome in four straight contests and were lagging in the final one, against India, when it was postponed because of the pandemic. They had won a single Test match out of 17, and lost 12 of them by embarrassing margins. A loss by eight wickets to New Zealand at the Birmingham ground, 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the London ground, an an innings defeat to the Australians at the iconic ground, 10 wickets to West Indies in the island nation.

The English side was routed by West Indies in the island in spring 2022 just before Joe Root resigned as skipper.

By the conclusion, after all those months of testing and social distancing and restricted environments and endless beatings at the hands of all opponents, they were just about the most dejected and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever fielded to a playing arena. A great deal of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the subsequent years was in response to all that, as well as the Stokes' personal encounters during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a bout of anxiety. It was created to remind everyone that it was intended as enjoyable, if it was supposed to be anything at all.

It still is now. Although the Ashes is on the line, and even if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they go about performing. Daily routines has a way of imposing, it can be hard to retain the knowledge we acquire in our most difficult periods.

This is the England team that secured back-to-back final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one season against New Zealand; that achieved a huge total to overcome the Indian team that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a comprehensive victory in the subcontinent country; that battled hard to a tie after going trailing by two matches in the the contest; that beat India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever performed in the subcontinent, and then defeated the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a subsequent one.

Here we have the English squad, too, that unexpectedly end up being defeated in a Test by an innings defeat even though the other team made a modest 326; who concluded being defeated in one of the finer contests ever staged after making a confident decision in the opening session against New Zealand, and then followed suit against the Aussies; who were thrashed by 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the wrong end of one of Sri Lanka's finest wins. Between them, they have recorded some of the surprising successes, suffered some of the ugliest dismissals, made some of the unlikeliest tons, and taken some of the most startling five-fers in the history of the English game.

However this historic contest concludes, they have been, in turn, amazing, preposterous, absurd, exasperating, and completely, unapologetically, unapologetically thrilling.