Ben Stokes' team have demonstrated everyone that this great game is meant to be fun.

Nobody talks about the final delivery of the Ashes. It's the first that's legendary. That stray ball that goes to the slips, that elegant shot for four, that fallen stump, shattering the stumps! Final deliveries? I needed to check. Moeen Ali cutting a stroke behind to end an innings loss in a dead rubber in 2015; Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his sole Test at the conclusion of a rapid downfall in a comprehensive defeat that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison short ball glancing off Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary Australia manage in a run chase they'll not attempt in 2005.

It separates between questioning how things will go, and understanding how they do. One certainty is, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the past ten years, the English visits to Australia have concluded in failure, rather than with them. Andy Flower was dismissed as head coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a two lineups out of English cricketers who played their last Test match at the conclusion of an trip Down Under during the last quarter-century, and additionally have a several individuals over to serve as reserves for either side.

Stokes' squad have never claimed to care too much about results. Stokes, like Morgan with the ODI squad before him, always says that if a lofted drive is caught on the boundary is secondary as if it was the proper call to execute it in the beginning, and while fielding he's happy to clap a delivery man who gives away boundaries so long as they bringing the team closer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the very reason Ben Stokes tried to instruct his squad to play this way was so they would be in a more advantageous state to produce the style of play he feels will perform effectively for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been preparing for so long, already seems like the outcome they are bound to face. It is Bazball's decisive moment. And there are an abundance of predictions of failure in the national sport for the team to get away with it if they do endure a further poor loss in the next few weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on challenging skeptics, and the other side is it feels as if there are many individuals who would be pleased to be shown right.

Given that, it's a appropriate time to emphasize that the important question is not only where this ultimately leads, but if we found pleasure along the way. A few years back, the English team were an thoroughly poor national side. They had been defeated in four consecutive series and were trailing in the fifth one, against India, when it was halted because of Covid. They had won exactly one Test match out of a series of 17, and lost a dozen of them by humiliating deficits. A loss by eight wickets to the Black Caps at Edgbaston, A defeat by 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the the famous stadium, an a comprehensive loss to the Aussie team at Melbourne, 10 wickets to the Windies in Grenada.

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

By the end, after all those months of testing and social distancing and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of all opponents, they were virtually the most disheartened and weary Test team the English cricket board had ever fielded to a cricket field. A great deal of what Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the following period was in response to all that, as well as the Stokes' individual trials during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a bout of anxiety. It was created to emphasize to all that it was meant to be fun, if it was intended as something.

That remains true now. Despite when the the historic series is on the line, and regardless if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they approach playing the game. Normal existence has a way of intruding, it can be hard to retain the insights we gain in our lowest moments.

Presented is the English squad that secured successive run chases of three challenging targets in one season against the Kiwis; that achieved 378 to beat the subcontinent giants that identical season; that became the pioneering away squad to win a clean sweep in Pakistan; that battled hard to a draw after going 2-0 down in the the series; that beat India in the southern city off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever performed in the subcontinent, and then defeated Pakistan in the location off the back of a further exceptional performance.

This is the England team, too, that somehow end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an large margin even though the rivals made only 326; who concluded being defeated in one of the better Tests ever contested after making a confident decision in the opening session 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 wrong end of one of Sri Lanka's greatest victories. Between them, they have secured some of the most improbable victories, experienced some of the ugliest dismissals, scored some of the most improbable centuries, and achieved some of the most surprising five-fers in the annals of English cricket.

No matter how this prestigious tournament concludes, they have been, one after another, amazing, outrageous, unconventional, frustrating, and completely, unrepentantly, boldly thrilling.