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Few recall the final delivery of the Ashes. It's the first that's legendary. That wide that reaches the slip cordon, that beautiful stroke for four, that fallen stump, shattering the stumps! Final deliveries? I had to research them. Ali edging a shot behind to finish an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a rapid downfall in a 5-0 whitewash that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery glancing off Justin Langer's shoulder for runs, the single four the Aussies manage in a target they'll not undertake 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, England's Australian tours have ended in ashes, instead of with them. Andy Flower lost his job as manager after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was sacked after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. You can make a two lineups out of English cricketers who played their last Test match at the tail end of an trip Down Under during the last quarter-century, and additionally have a couple of men over to serve as reserves for each squad.

Stokes' squad have not professed to care too much about consequences. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, always says that regardless of whether a lifted stroke is grabbed near the fence matters less as whether it was the correct choice to execute it in the outset, and while fielding he's happy to clap a bowler who allows scoring shots so long as they are bringing the team toward taking that next wicket. But then the very reason Ben Stokes tried to instruct his squad to follow this style was so they would be in a better position to execute the brand of the game he feels will perform effectively for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been training rigorously, already appears as the outcome they are bound to face. It is this bold strategy's make or break moment. And there are numerous predictions of failure in the national sport for the team to get away with it if they do suffer another disappointing result in the coming weeks. The captain's strategy has been founded on defying expectations, and the flipside is it appears there are plenty of people who would be thrilled to be proven correct.

Given that, it's a suitable occasion to point out that the key issue isn't just where this all ends up, but if we enjoyed it along the way. A few years back, England were an thoroughly poor sports team. They had been defeated in four consecutive series and were falling behind in the final one, against India, when it was postponed because of the pandemic. They had won exactly one Test match out of seventeen, and lost a dozen of them by large defeats. An eight-wicket defeat to the Black Caps at the Birmingham ground, A defeat by 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the famous stadium, an a comprehensive loss to the Aussie team at Melbourne, 10 wickets to the Windies in the scenic location.

The team was soundly beaten by the Windies in the venue in the early part of 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as captain.

By the final stage, after all those periods of nasal swabs and isolation and restricted environments and endless beatings at the hands of everyone they played, they were practically the most disheartened and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever put on to a cricket field. So much of what Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the years since was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' personal encounters during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had endured a bout of anxiety. It was intended to remind everyone that it was meant to be enjoyable, if it was supposed to be anything.

It still is now. Despite when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and regardless if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they approach playing the game. Daily routines has a way of intruding, it can be hard to remember the lessons we learn in our toughest times.

This is the English squad that achieved consecutive run chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one period against the Black Caps; that scored a huge total to overcome the subcontinent giants that same summer; that became the first touring team to win a comprehensive victory in the subcontinent country; that battled hard to a tie after going 2-0 down in the Ashes; that beat India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the greatest innings ever executed in the subcontinent, and then defeated the Pakistani team in the city off the back of a subsequent one.

This is the English squad, too, that unexpectedly end up being defeated in a Test by an innings even though the rivals made only 326; who fetched up suffering a loss in one of the better Tests ever played after making a confident decision in the first innings against New Zealand, and then repeated the action against the Australian team; who were soundly beaten by 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the losing side of one of the island nation's greatest victories. Collectively, they have recorded some of the unlikeliest wins, experienced some of the ugliest dismissals, achieved some of the unlikeliest tons, and taken some of the most remarkable five-wicket hauls in the annals of English cricket.

No matter how this historic contest unfolds, they have been, in turn, astonishing, preposterous, ridiculous, infuriating, and entirely, unrepentantly, unapologetically thrilling.