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Nobody talks about the concluding moment of the Ashes. It's the first that's famous. That errant delivery that goes to the slips, that beautiful stroke for four, that fallen stump, shattering the stumps! Last balls? I had to look them up. Moeen Ali edging a shot behind to finish an innings rout in a inconsequential game in 2015; Rankin being taken at slip off Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his single Test at the conclusion of a quick disintegration in a 5-0 whitewash that's been plentiful in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery glancing off Langer's shoulder for runs, the only four the Aussies achieve in a run chase they'll not attempt in 2005.

It's the difference between speculating how things will go, and knowing how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the previous decade, the English trips Down Under have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower was removed as coach after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after another, 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 tour to Australia during the previous 25 years, and even have a few players over to act as substitutes for each squad.

This England team have never claimed to be overly concerned about results. Stokes, like Morgan with the ODI squad before him, frequently remarks that regardless of whether a lofted drive is taken at the rope isn't as important as whether or not it was the proper call to execute it in the outset, and during play he's quick to praise a bowler who concedes runs so long as they bringing the team toward taking that subsequent dismissal. 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 brand of the game he thinks will do well for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been training rigorously, already feels like the result they are bound to face. It is Bazball's make or break moment. And there are numerous warnings of defeat in the English game for the team to escape criticism if they do endure a further disappointing result in the next few weeks. His methodology has been predicated on proving everyone wrong, and the other side is it feels as if there are many individuals who would be thrilled to be proven correct.

Given that, it's a suitable occasion to point out that the key issue isn't just where this all ends up, but whether or not we found pleasure along the way. In the recent past, the English team were an completely dismal cricket team. They had been overcome in four consecutive series and were lagging in the final one, against India, when it was halted because of the virus. They had won a single Test match out of 17, and lost a dozen of them by humiliating deficits. Eight wickets to the Black Caps at the Birmingham ground, 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the famous stadium, an innings and 14 runs to the Aussie team at Melbourne, A ten-wicket loss to West Indies in Grenada.

England were thrashed by the Caribbean team in the island in the early part of 2022 just before Root stepped aside as captain.

By the conclusion, after all those months of testing and preventive measures and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of each rival, they were practically the most miserable and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever fielded to a sports ground. So much of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the years since was in response to all that, as well as the Stokes' personal encounters during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to make people recall that it was meant to be entertaining, if it was supposed to be anything.

It still is now. Although the Ashes is on the line, and although the team have finally recognized that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they approach competing. Normal existence has a way of intruding, it can be difficult to hold on to the lessons we learn in our most difficult periods.

This is the England team that achieved back-to-back fourth-innings chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one summer against the Kiwis; that made 378 to defeat the subcontinent giants that corresponding period; that became the initial visiting side to win a clean sweep in the host nation; that fought back to a tie after going trailing by two matches in the Ashes; that defeated the Indian team in Hyderabad off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever executed in the the area, and then defeated the Pakistani team in Multan off the back of a further exceptional performance.

Here we have the England team, too, that somehow end up losing a Test by an innings defeat even though the other team made only 326; who concluded suffering a loss in one of the better Tests ever contested after making a cocksure declaration in the opening session against the Black Caps, and then repeated the action against Australia; who were routed by a huge margin in the venue, and who were on the wrong end of one of the Sri Lankan team's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have recorded some of the surprising successes, endured some of the most embarrassing exits, made some of the most improbable tons, and achieved some of the most surprising five-fers in the annals of the national sport.

However this prestigious tournament concludes, they have been, one after another, incredible, unbelievable, absurd, infuriating, and entirely, unapologetically, unapologetically entertaining.