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Few recall the concluding moment of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's legendary. That wide that reaches the slip cordon, that beautiful stroke for four, that dismissal, clean bowled! Concluding moments? I had to look them up. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings loss in a inconsequential game in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Boyd Rankin featuring in his one and only Test at the conclusion of a 30-over collapse in a clean sweep that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison bouncer ricocheting away Langer's shoulder for extras, the sole boundary Australia score in a pursuit they'll not undertake in 2005.

It's the difference between wondering how things will go, and knowing how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no certainty there will be a positive outcome. For the past ten years, the English Australian tours have concluded in failure, rather than with them. Andy Flower lost his job as coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Silverwood was let go after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a two lineups out of England players who participated in their concluding Test match at the tail end of an Australian tour during the previous 25 years, and additionally have a couple of men over to carry the drinks for each squad.

Stokes' squad have not professed to care too much about results. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the one-day side before him, consistently states that if a lifted stroke is taken at the rope isn't as important as whether it was the right decision to play it in the outset, and in the field he's pleased to applaud a bowler who concedes runs so long as they help bring the team nearer to taking that following breakthrough. But then the key rationale Stokes tried to guide his players to play this way was so they would be in a superior situation to execute the brand of the game he believes will succeed for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been preparing for so long, already appears as the outcome they are bound to face. It is this bold strategy's critical moment. And there are an abundance of warnings of defeat in the national sport for the team to get away with it if they do endure a further disappointing result in the coming weeks. Stokes's approach has been predicated on proving everyone wrong, and the flipside is it seems that there are plenty of people who would be pleased to be proven correct.

In light of this, it's a suitable occasion to point out that the key issue goes beyond where this concludes, but if we had fun along the way. In the recent past, England were an utterly abject national side. They had been beaten in a quartet of successive tournaments and were falling behind in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was suspended because of the virus. They had won only one Test match out of a series of 17, and lost 12 of them by embarrassing margins. Eight wickets to the Black Caps at the historic venue, A 157-run loss to the Indian squad at the Oval, an a comprehensive loss to the Australians at the MCG, A ten-wicket loss to the Caribbean side in the scenic location.

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

By the final stage, after all those periods of testing and social distancing and restricted environments and repeated losses at the hands of everyone they played, they were virtually the most dejected and exhausted Test team England had ever sent out to a playing arena. A significant portion of what Stokes and McCullum have done in the subsequent years was in a consequence of all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had endured a period of mental health challenges. It was created to remind everyone that it was supposed to be enjoyable, if it was meant to be something.

This continues to be the case now. Even when the the historic series is on the line, and even if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they tackle playing the game. Normal existence has a way of imposing, it can be hard to retain the knowledge we acquire in our toughest times.

Presented is the England team that peeled off consecutive final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one season against the Kiwis; that achieved a huge total to overcome the subcontinent giants that same summer; that became the pioneering away squad to win a clean sweep in the host nation; that battled hard to a tie after going two games behind in the the contest; that defeated the Indian team in the historic venue off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever executed in the the region, and then defeated the Pakistani team in the location off the back of another.

It is the English squad, too, that somehow end up being defeated in a Test by an innings defeat even though the rivals made only 326; who fetched up being defeated in one of the better Tests ever contested after making a cocksure declaration in the first innings against New Zealand, and then repeated the action against the Australian team; who were thrashed by 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the losing side of one of the island nation's finest wins. Between them, they have recorded some of the surprising successes, suffered some of the poorest performances, achieved some of the unlikeliest hundreds, and taken some of the most startling five-wicket hauls in the records of the national sport.

However this Ashes series concludes, they have been, successively, amazing, preposterous, unconventional, infuriating, and entirely, without regret, boldly enjoyable.