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Nobody talks about the last ball of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's renowned. That wide that reaches the slip cordon, that cover drive for four, that wicket, bowled him! Last balls? I needed to check. Moeen Ali edging a shot behind to finish an innings defeat in a dead rubber in 2015; Boyd Rankin being caught in the slips off Harris, Boyd Rankin featuring in his sole Test at the tail-end of a 30-over collapse in a clean sweep that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison short ball ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the single four Australia achieve in a pursuit they'll never get to make in 2005.

It separates between speculating how things will go, and understanding how they do. One certainty is, there's no assurance there will be a positive outcome. For the previous decade, the English visits to Australia have finished in defeat, instead of with them. Flower was removed as head coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was let go after another, in 2021-22. You can make a pair of XIs out of English cricketers who participated in their concluding Test match at the back end of an tour to Australia during the previous 25 years, and still have a couple of men over to carry the drinks for both teams.

The current English side have not professed to be overly concerned about results. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the one-day side before him, consistently states that if a lofted drive is taken at the rope isn't as important as whether or not it was the correct choice to execute it in the outset, and in the field he's pleased to applaud a bowler who allows scoring shots so long as they are bringing the team closer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the key rationale Ben Stokes tried to teach his team to play this way was so they would be in a better position to deliver the brand of the game he feels will succeed for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been planning extensively, already appears as the result they cannot escape. It is Bazball's make or break moment. And there are too many predictions of failure in the national sport for the team to escape criticism if they do suffer another poor loss in the upcoming period. The captain's strategy has been based on challenging skeptics, and the counterpart is it appears there are numerous observers who would be delighted to be proven correct.

In light of this, it's a suitable occasion to point out that the key issue is not only where this concludes, but whether or not we had fun along the way. A few years back, the English team were an utterly abject cricket team. They had been defeated in four consecutive series and were falling behind in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was halted because of the pandemic. They had won a single Test match out of a series of 17, and lost twelve of them by large defeats. Eight wickets to New Zealand at the historic venue, A 157-run loss to the subcontinent team at the Oval, an an innings defeat to the Australians at the iconic ground, A defeat by ten wickets to West Indies in the scenic location.

England were thrashed by the Windies in the venue in March 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as captain.

By the final stage, after all those months of nasal swabs and isolation and restricted environments and repeated losses at the hands of each rival, they were practically the most dejected and careworn Test team England had ever fielded to a playing arena. A significant portion of what Stokes and McCullum have accomplished in the following period was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' individual trials during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had endured a series of panic attacks. It was created to emphasize to all that it was intended as fun, if it was meant to be anything.

It still is now. Although the the historic series is on the line, and although the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they go about playing the game. Everyday life has a way of crowding in, it can be difficult to hold on to the lessons we learn in our lowest moments.

This is the England team that achieved consecutive run chases of three challenging targets in one summer against the Kiwis; that achieved a massive 378 to beat the subcontinent giants that corresponding period; that became the pioneering away squad to win a clean sweep in the host nation; that battled hard to a stalemate after going 2-0 down in the the contest; that beat India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever played in the subcontinent, and then overcame Pakistan in Multan off the back of a subsequent one.

Here we have the England team, too, that managed to end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings even though the opposition made only 326; who concluded losing one of the better Tests ever staged after making a bold declaration in the opening session against the Kiwis, and then repeated the action against the Australian team; who were thrashed by a huge margin in Rajkot, and who were on the wrong end of one of the island nation's finest wins. Between them, they have secured some of the most improbable victories, suffered some of the ugliest dismissals, made some of the unlikeliest tons, and achieved some of the most remarkable five-fers in the history of the English game.

No matter how this historic contest concludes, they have been, in turn, amazing, unbelievable, absurd, exasperating, and totally, unapologetically, boldly thrilling.