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Nobody talks about the concluding moment of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's legendary. That stray ball that reaches the slip cordon, that cover drive for four, that dismissal, clean bowled! Concluding moments? I needed to check. Moeen Ali cutting a stroke behind to end an innings rout in a dead rubber in 2015; Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Rankin participating in his sole Test at the conclusion of a 30-over collapse in a clean sweep that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery ricocheting away Justin Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary the Aussies score in a run chase they'll not undertake in 2005.

It separates between wondering how things will go, and knowing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no assurance there will be a successful conclusion. For the past ten years, the English Australian tours have finished in defeat, rather than with them. Flower was dismissed as head coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was sacked after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. You can make a pair of XIs out of England players who played their last Test match at the back end of an Australian tour during the previous 25 years, and still have a few players over to carry the drinks for each squad.

Stokes' squad have never claimed to be overly concerned about results. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, consistently states that regardless of whether a lofted drive is taken at the rope isn't as important as whether it was the correct choice to play it in the outset, and while fielding he's pleased to applaud a bowler who concedes runs so long as they help bring the team toward taking that following breakthrough. But then the primary motive Ben Stokes tried to teach his team to follow this style was so they would be in a better position to deliver the kind of cricket he believes will succeed for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been training rigorously, already seems like the result they cannot escape. It is this aggressive approach's critical moment. And there are numerous warnings of defeat in the national sport for the team to avoid backlash if they do experience another bad defeat in the coming weeks. Stokes's approach has been based on defying expectations, and the counterpart is it appears there are many individuals who would be thrilled to be proven correct.

Considering this, it's a good moment to highlight that the key issue goes beyond where this all ends up, but regardless of whether we found pleasure along the way. In the recent past, England were an utterly abject national side. They had been overcome in four straight contests and were lagging in the fifth, against India, when it was halted because of the pandemic. They had won exactly one Test match out of 17, and lost a dozen of them by humiliating deficits. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at Edgbaston, A defeat by 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the famous stadium, an a comprehensive loss to Australia at the iconic ground, A defeat by ten wickets to the Caribbean side in the island nation.

England were thrashed by West Indies in Grenada in the early part of 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as captain.

By the conclusion, after all those periods of health protocols and isolation and restricted environments and endless beatings at the hands of all opponents, they were virtually the most dejected and careworn Test team England had ever put on to a playing arena. A great deal of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the following period was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's individual trials during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a series of panic attacks. It was designed to make people recall that it was supposed to be fun, if it was supposed to be something.

This continues to be the case now. Although the Ashes is on the line, and regardless if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they approach playing the game. Everyday life has a way of imposing, it can be hard to hold on to the lessons we learn in our most difficult periods.

This is the England team that achieved consecutive fourth-innings chases of three challenging targets in one season against the Kiwis; that made a massive 378 to defeat the Indian team that corresponding period; that became the pioneering away squad to win a clean sweep in the host nation; that fought back to a draw after going 2-0 down in the the contest; that defeated the Indian team in the southern city off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever executed in the the region, and then overcame Pakistan in the location off the back of a subsequent one.

It is the English squad, too, that unexpectedly end up being defeated in a Test by an large margin even though the opposition made a relatively low total; who fetched up suffering a loss in one of the better Tests ever staged after making a cocksure declaration in the opening session against New Zealand, and then repeated the action against Australia; who were routed by 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of Sri Lanka's greatest victories. Between them, they have recorded some of the surprising successes, experienced some of the ugliest dismissals, achieved some of the unlikeliest tons, and secured some of the most remarkable five-fers in the history of the English game.

However this Ashes series concludes, they have been, one after another, incredible, outrageous, unconventional, exasperating, and completely, without regret, unashamedly enjoyable.