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People rarely mention the last ball of the Ashes. That initial ball that's renowned. That errant delivery that flies to slip, that elegant shot for four, that dismissal, shattering the stumps! Last balls? I needed to check. Moeen Ali edging a shot behind to end an innings rout in a inconsequential game in 2015; Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Rankin participating in his sole Test at the tail-end of a 30-over collapse in a 5-0 whitewash that's been commonplace in 2014; a Harmison short ball deflecting off Langer's shoulder for runs, the only four the Aussies achieve in a target they'll not attempt in 2005.

It separates between speculating how things will go, and seeing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no assurance there will be a positive outcome. For the past ten years, England's trips Down Under have finished in defeat, instead of with them. Flower was dismissed as coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Silverwood was sacked after a further defeat, in 2021-22. One could assemble a couple of teams out of national team members who played their last Test match at the back end of an Australian tour during the previous 25 years, and even have a few players over to act as substitutes for either side.

The current English side have never claimed to worry excessively about outcomes. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the one-day side before him, frequently remarks that whether or not a lofted drive is grabbed near the fence matters less as whether it was the correct choice to play it in the outset, and while fielding he's happy to clap a bowler who concedes runs so long as they help bring the team nearer to taking that next wicket. But then the key rationale Stokes tried to instruct his squad to adopt this approach was so they would be in a superior situation to execute the style of play he thinks will perform effectively for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been planning extensively, already appears as the outcome they can't get away from. It is Bazball's decisive moment. And there are too many warnings of defeat in English cricket for the team to get away with it if they do endure a further poor loss in the next few weeks. His methodology has been predicated on proving everyone wrong, and the other side is it appears there are numerous observers who would be thrilled to be validated.

In light of this, it's a appropriate time to point out that the key issue goes beyond where this all ends up, but if we had fun along the way. A few years back, the English team were an thoroughly poor national side. They had been beaten in a quartet of successive tournaments and were lagging in the final one, against India, when it was suspended because of Covid. They had won a single Test match out of a series of 17, and lost twelve of them by large defeats. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at the historic venue, A 157-run loss to the Indian squad at the the famous stadium, an innings and 14 runs to the Aussie team at the iconic ground, 10 wickets to the Caribbean side in Grenada.

The English side was routed by West Indies in Grenada in the early part of 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as skipper.

By the end, after all those stretches of nasal swabs and preventive measures and biosecure bubbles and endless beatings at the hands of all opponents, they were practically the most dejected and weary Test team England had ever put on to a cricket field. A significant portion of what Stokes and Brendon 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 experienced a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to remind everyone that it was supposed to be fun, if it was intended as anything at all.

It still is now. Despite when the the prestigious contest 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 crowding in, it can be hard to remember the knowledge we acquire in our lowest moments.

Presented is the English squad that peeled off consecutive final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one summer against the Kiwis; that made a massive 378 to defeat the Indian team that identical season; that became the first touring team to win a comprehensive victory in the host nation; that showed resilience to a tie after going trailing by two matches in the the series; that defeated the Indian team in Hyderabad off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever played in the the area, and then beat the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a further exceptional performance.

This is the national side, too, that managed to end up being defeated in a Test by an innings even though the other team made a relatively low total; who concluded suffering a loss in one of the better Tests ever contested after making a bold declaration in the first innings against New Zealand, and then repeated the action against the Aussies; who were thrashed by a massive 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of Sri Lanka's most notable triumphs. Between them, they have recorded some of the surprising successes, endured some of the ugliest dismissals, made some of the surprising hundreds, and secured some of the most startling five-fers in the records of English cricket.

No matter how this prestigious tournament unfolds, they have been, in turn, amazing, unbelievable, unconventional, frustrating, and totally, unrepentantly, unashamedly thrilling.