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Nobody talks about the final delivery of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's renowned. That wide that goes to the slips, that beautiful stroke for four, that wicket, shattering the stumps! Last balls? I needed to check. Moeen 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 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 rising delivery glancing off Langer's shoulder for extras, the sole boundary the Australian team manage in a pursuit they'll never get to make in 2005.

It distinguishes between speculating how things will go, and knowing how they do. One certainty is, there's no certainty there will be a positive outcome. For the last decade, the English visits to Australia have ended in ashes, rather than with them. Andy Flower was removed as manager after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was let go after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. One could assemble a pair of XIs out of England players who played their last Test match at the conclusion of an tour to Australia during the last quarter-century, and additionally have a few players over to act as substitutes for each squad.

Stokes' squad have never claimed to worry excessively about consequences. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the one-day side before him, always says that if a lofted drive is taken at the rope isn't as important as whether it was the correct choice to play it in the first place, and during play he's quick to praise a bowler who concedes runs so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that following breakthrough. 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 execute the brand of the game he feels will do well for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been planning extensively, already appears as the outcome they cannot escape. It is this aggressive approach's make or break moment. And there are numerous “I told you so’s” in English cricket for the team to escape criticism if they do endure a further disappointing result in the next few weeks. His methodology has been founded on proving everyone wrong, and the flipside is it feels as if there are plenty of people who would be delighted to be validated.

Given that, it's a good moment to emphasize that the crucial matter isn't just where this ultimately leads, but whether or not we enjoyed it along the way. Four years ago, England were an thoroughly poor cricket team. They had been overcome in four straight contests and were trailing in the final one, against India, when it was suspended because of Covid. They had won only one Test match out of a series of 17, and lost 12 of them by large defeats. Eight wickets to New Zealand at the Birmingham ground, A defeat by 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the famous stadium, an an innings defeat to the Aussie team at the MCG, 10 wickets to the Caribbean side in the scenic location.

The English side was routed by the Caribbean team in Grenada in March 2022 just before Joe Root stepped down as leader.

By the end, after all those months of health protocols and preventive measures and controlled settings and endless beatings at the hands of each rival, they were just about the most miserable and exhausted Test team England had ever sent out to a playing arena. So much of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have done in the following period was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had endured a bout of anxiety. It was designed to emphasize to all that it was supposed to be entertaining, if it was intended as anything at all.

That remains true now. Despite when the the historic series 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. Daily routines has a way of intruding, it can be hard to retain the knowledge we acquire in our lowest moments.

This is the national side that peeled off back-to-back final innings pursuits of significant totals in one summer against the Black Caps; that made a massive 378 to beat the subcontinent giants that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a whitewash in Pakistan; that fought back to a draw after going trailing by two matches in the the contest; that overcame the Indian team in the southern city off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever executed in the subcontinent, and then defeated Pakistan in the city off the back of another.

It is the English squad, too, that unexpectedly end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an large margin even though the other team made only 326; who concluded losing one of the better Tests ever played after making a bold declaration in the initial batting effort against the Black Caps, and then repeated the action against the Australian team; who were routed by a huge margin in Rajkot, and who were on the losing side of one of the island nation's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have secured some of the unlikeliest wins, experienced some of the poorest performances, scored some of the most improbable hundreds, and achieved some of the most surprising exceptional bowling spells in the history of English cricket.

However this historic contest shakes out, they have been, one after another, amazing, preposterous, unconventional, frustrating, and entirely, unapologetically, boldly thrilling.