Ben Stokes' team have shown the world that cricket is supposed to be enjoyment.

Nobody talks about the final delivery of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's legendary. That wide that flies to slip, that cover drive for four, that wicket, clean bowled! Final deliveries? I needed to check. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to finish an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Rankin playing in his sole Test at the fag-end of a rapid downfall in a comprehensive defeat that's been commonplace in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery glancing off Langer's shoulder for runs, the sole boundary the Aussies score in a run chase they'll not attempt in 2005.

It distinguishes between questioning how things will go, and understanding how they do. One thing's certain, there's no certainty there will be a positive outcome. For the past ten years, the English trips Down Under have concluded in failure, instead of with them. Flower lost his job as coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was sacked after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a pair of XIs out of national team members who participated in their concluding Test match at the tail end of an Australian tour during the past 25 years, and still have a couple of men over to act as substitutes for both teams.

This England team have not asserted to be overly concerned about consequences. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, always says that whether or not a aerial shot is grabbed near the fence matters less as whether it was the proper call to execute it in the outset, and during play he's quick to praise a bowler who gives away boundaries so long as they are bringing the team nearer to 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 more advantageous state to execute the style of play he feels will do well for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been preparing for so long, already seems like the outcome they can't get away from. It is Bazball's make or break moment. And there are too many warnings of defeat in the national sport for the team to avoid backlash if they do endure a further bad defeat in the next few weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on proving everyone wrong, and the other side is it appears there are many individuals who would be thrilled to be proven correct.

Given that, it's a appropriate time to emphasize that the key issue goes beyond where this ultimately leads, but whether or not we had fun along the way. In the recent past, the English team were an utterly abject cricket team. They had been defeated in four straight contests and were lagging in the fifth, against India, when it was suspended because of the virus. They had won a single Test match out of seventeen, and lost 12 of them by large defeats. Eight wickets to the Kiwis at Edgbaston, 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the Oval, an an innings defeat to the Aussie team at Melbourne, A ten-wicket loss to the Caribbean side in the island nation.

England were thrashed by the Windies in Grenada in spring 2022 just before Root stepped aside as skipper.

By the conclusion, after all those months of testing and social distancing and biosecure bubbles and repeated losses at the hands of everyone they played, they were virtually the most dejected and careworn Test team the English cricket board had ever sent out to a playing arena. So much of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have accomplished in the following period was in a consequence of all that, as well as the Stokes' individual trials during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had experienced a period of mental health challenges. It was created to emphasize to all that it was meant to be enjoyable, if it was intended as anything.

That remains true now. Despite when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and regardless if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they go about competing. Normal existence has a way of intruding, it can be hard to remember the lessons we learn in our toughest times.

Presented is the national side that achieved consecutive final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one season against New Zealand; that made a massive 378 to overcome the Indian team that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a comprehensive victory in the subcontinent country; that showed resilience to a tie after going trailing by two matches in the the contest; that overcame the Indian team in Hyderabad 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 a further exceptional performance.

Here we have the England team, too, that somehow end up being defeated in a Test by an innings defeat even though the opposition made a modest 326; who concluded being defeated 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 Aussies; who were soundly beaten by a huge margin in the venue, and who were on the wrong end of one of the island nation's most notable triumphs. As a unit, they have secured some of the surprising successes, suffered some of the ugliest dismissals, achieved some of the most improbable centuries, and achieved some of the most startling exceptional bowling spells in the history of the English game.

No matter how this historic contest concludes, they have been, in turn, amazing, unbelievable, unconventional, frustrating, and entirely, without regret, unashamedly enjoyable.