Ben Stokes' team have demonstrated the world that cricket is all about entertainment.

Nobody talks about the final delivery of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's famous. That stray ball that reaches the slip cordon, that elegant shot for four, that fallen stump, clean bowled! Last balls? I had to research them. Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings rout in a dead rubber in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Rankin featuring in his single Test at the tail-end of a 30-over collapse in a clean sweep that's been plentiful in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for extras, the only four Australia score in a pursuit they'll not undertake in 2005.

It distinguishes between questioning how things will go, and seeing how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no assurance there will be a successful conclusion. For the last decade, the English trips Down Under have ended in ashes, instead of with them. Flower was removed as manager after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after another, in 2021-22. You can make a couple of teams out of English cricketers who participated in their concluding Test match at the conclusion of an trip Down Under during the past 25 years, and even have a few players over to act as substitutes for both teams.

This England team have not asserted to worry excessively about consequences. Stokes, like Morgan with the one-day side before him, consistently states that regardless of whether a lifted stroke is caught on the boundary is secondary as whether or not it was the right decision to play it in the first place, and during play he's quick to praise a delivery man who concedes runs so long as they bringing the team toward taking that next wicket. But then the key rationale Ben Stokes tried to instruct his squad to follow this style was so they would be in a better position to execute the kind of cricket he thinks will succeed for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been training rigorously, already seems like the outcome they cannot escape. It is this bold strategy's critical moment. And there are too many warnings of defeat in the national sport for the team to escape criticism if they do experience another bad defeat in the coming weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on defying expectations, and the other side is it appears there are plenty of people who would be thrilled to be shown right.

In light of this, it's a suitable occasion to highlight that the crucial matter isn't just where this concludes, but regardless of whether we enjoyed it along the way. In the recent past, the English team were an thoroughly poor cricket team. They had been defeated in four consecutive series and were trailing in the fifth one, against India, when it was postponed because of the virus. They had won only one Test match out of a series of 17, and lost twelve of them by embarrassing margins. Eight wickets to the Black Caps at Edgbaston, A defeat by 157 runs to the Indian squad at the Oval, an an innings defeat to Australia at the iconic ground, A ten-wicket loss to West Indies in the scenic location.

The team was soundly beaten by West Indies in the venue in spring 2022 just before Joe Root stepped down as leader.

By the conclusion, after all those stretches of nasal swabs and social distancing and controlled settings and constant defeats at the hands of everyone they played, they were virtually the most dejected and careworn Test team England had ever fielded to a sports ground. So much of what Stokes and McCullum have accomplished in the subsequent years was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' experiences during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had endured a period of mental health challenges. It was intended to make people recall that it was supposed to be fun, if it was intended as anything.

It still is now. Despite when the the historic series is on the line, and even if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they tackle competing. Normal existence has a way of crowding in, it can be hard to remember the insights we gain in our most difficult periods.

Here is the national side that secured consecutive final innings pursuits of significant totals in one period against New Zealand; that scored 378 to overcome 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 stalemate after going two games behind in the the series; that beat India in the southern city off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever executed in the the area, and then defeated the Pakistani team in the city off the back of a subsequent one.

This is the national side, too, that unexpectedly end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings defeat even though the other team made a modest 326; who concluded suffering a loss in one of the more exciting matches ever played after making a cocksure declaration in the opening session against the Black Caps, and then followed suit against Australia; who were soundly beaten by a massive 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the losing side of one of the Sri Lankan team's finest wins. Collectively, they have secured some of the unlikeliest wins, experienced some of the poorest performances, achieved some of the unlikeliest hundreds, and secured some of the most surprising five-wicket hauls in the records of English cricket.

Regardless of how this Ashes series shakes out, they have been, in turn, amazing, outrageous, absurd, exasperating, and totally, unrepentantly, boldly thrilling.