Stokes' England have demonstrated the world that the sport of cricket is supposed to be fun.

Nobody talks about the last ball of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's famous. That wide that reaches the slip cordon, that cover drive for four, that wicket, shattering the stumps! Last balls? I had to look them up. Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings defeat in a inconsequential game in 2015; Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Boyd Rankin participating in his sole Test at the tail-end of a quick disintegration in a 5-0 whitewash that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison bouncer ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the single four the Australian team score in a pursuit they'll not attempt in 2005.

It distinguishes between speculating how things will go, and seeing how they do. One certainty is, there's no certainty there will be a happy ending. For the previous decade, England's visits to Australia have finished in defeat, rather than with them. Flower was dismissed as coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Silverwood was let go after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. One could assemble a two lineups out of England players who participated in their concluding Test match at the conclusion of an Australian tour during the previous 25 years, and even have a couple of men over to act as substitutes for either side.

The current English side have not professed to worry excessively about outcomes. Stokes, like Morgan with the one-day side before him, consistently states that whether or not a lofted drive is taken at the rope is secondary as whether it was the correct choice to attempt it in the beginning, and during play he's happy to clap a delivery man who gives away boundaries so long as they help bring the team toward taking that next wicket. But then the very reason Stokes tried to instruct his squad to play this way was so they would be in a better position to produce the kind of cricket he feels will do well for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been preparing for so long, already seems like the outcome they cannot escape. It is Bazball's decisive moment. And there are numerous predictions of failure in English cricket for the team to get away with it if they do endure a further bad defeat in the next few weeks. The captain's strategy has been founded on proving everyone wrong, and the other side is it seems that there are plenty of people who would be delighted to be shown right.

Considering this, it's a good moment to emphasize that the crucial matter is not only where this concludes, but regardless of whether we enjoyed it along the way. A few years back, England were an completely dismal sports team. They had been beaten in four consecutive series and were falling behind in the final one, against India, when it was halted because of the virus. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost twelve of them by embarrassing margins. 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 innings and 14 runs to the Australians at the MCG, 10 wickets to West Indies in the island nation.

England were thrashed by the Windies in the venue in spring 2022 just before Root stepped down as leader.

By the final stage, after all those months of testing and isolation and controlled settings and repeated losses at the hands of each rival, they were just about the most dejected and weary Test team England had ever sent out to a sports ground. A significant portion of what Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the years since was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a series of panic attacks. It was designed to make people recall that it was meant to be enjoyable, if it was meant to be something.

That remains true now. Even when the Ashes is on the line, and even if the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they go about playing the game. Daily routines has a way of crowding in, it can be hard to retain the knowledge we acquire in our lowest moments.

Presented is the English squad that achieved consecutive final innings pursuits of 277, 299, and 296 in one summer against New Zealand; that made a huge total to beat India that same summer; that became the pioneering away squad to win a clean sweep in Pakistan; that showed resilience to a stalemate after going trailing by two matches in the the series; that beat India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever played in the the area, and then overcame the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a subsequent one.

This is the English squad, too, that unexpectedly end up losing a Test by an large margin even though the other team made a modest 326; who ended up being defeated in one of the finer contests ever played after making a bold declaration in the opening session against New Zealand, and then repeated the action against Australia; who were thrashed by a huge margin in the Indian city, and who were on the losing side of one of the Sri Lankan team's most notable triumphs. Between them, they have recorded some of the surprising successes, endured some of the most embarrassing exits, made some of the surprising hundreds, and secured some of the most surprising five-wicket hauls in the records of the national sport.

No matter how this prestigious tournament unfolds, they have been, one after another, incredible, unbelievable, unconventional, frustrating, and totally, without regret, unapologetically entertaining.