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Nobody talks about the concluding moment of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's renowned. That wide that flies to slip, that beautiful stroke for four, that wicket, shattering the stumps! Concluding moments? I needed to check. Moeen Ali cutting a stroke behind to end an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Boyd Rankin participating in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a rapid downfall in a clean sweep that's been plentiful in 2014; a Harmison bouncer deflecting off Justin Langer's shoulder for extras, the only four the Aussies manage in a run chase they'll never get to make in 2005.

It's the difference between questioning how things will go, and seeing how they do. One certainty is, there's no assurance there will be a positive outcome. For the last decade, England's visits to Australia have concluded in failure, instead of with them. Flower was dismissed as head coach after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. You can make a pair of XIs out of England players who played their last Test match at the conclusion of an trip Down Under during the past 25 years, and additionally have a couple of men over to serve as reserves for both teams.

This England team have not professed to worry excessively about consequences. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the ODI squad before him, always says that regardless of whether a lifted stroke is caught on the boundary is secondary as if it was the right decision to attempt it in the outset, and while fielding he's pleased to applaud a pitcher who allows scoring shots so long as they are bringing the team closer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the primary motive Ben Stokes tried to teach his team to play this way was so they would be in a superior situation to produce the kind of cricket he believes will perform effectively for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been planning extensively, already feels like the result they are bound to face. It is Bazball's critical 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 disappointing result in the coming weeks. Stokes's approach has been predicated on proving everyone wrong, and the other side is it appears there are many individuals who would be delighted to be validated.

In light of this, it's a appropriate time to emphasize that the important question is not only where this concludes, but if we enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an completely dismal national side. They had been defeated in a quartet of successive tournaments and were lagging in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was postponed because of the pandemic. They had won exactly one Test match out of 17, and lost a dozen of them by embarrassing margins. Eight wickets to the Kiwis at Edgbaston, 157 runs to India at the Oval, an an innings defeat to the Australians at the iconic ground, 10 wickets to the Caribbean side in the scenic location.

The team was soundly beaten by the Caribbean team in the venue in spring 2022 just before Root stepped aside as skipper.

By the end, after all those months of testing and social distancing and biosecure bubbles and endless beatings at the hands of each rival, they were practically the most disheartened and weary Test team England had ever sent out to a playing arena. A great deal of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have done in the subsequent years was in response to all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to make people recall that it was supposed to be fun, if it was supposed to be anything at all.

This continues to be the case now. Even when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and although the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they go about competing. Everyday life has a way of crowding in, it can be hard to retain the lessons we learn in our toughest times.

This is the England team that peeled off consecutive final innings pursuits of 277, 299, and 296 in one summer against New Zealand; that achieved 378 to beat the subcontinent giants that corresponding period; that became the initial visiting side to win a comprehensive victory in the subcontinent country; that fought back to a stalemate after going two games behind in the the series; that overcame India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the greatest innings ever played in the subcontinent, and then defeated Pakistan in the city off the back of another.

This is the England team, too, that somehow end up losing a Test by an innings defeat even though the opposition made a relatively low total; who ended up being defeated in one of the finer contests ever contested after making a confident decision in the opening session against New Zealand, and then repeated the action against the Australian team; who were routed by a massive 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the losing side of one of the Sri Lankan team's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have secured some of the surprising successes, endured some of the ugliest dismissals, made some of the most improbable tons, and achieved some of the most surprising five-wicket hauls in the annals of the national sport.

No matter how this prestigious tournament concludes, they have been, one after another, astonishing, preposterous, absurd, exasperating, and totally, unrepentantly, unashamedly enjoyable.