England under Stokes have reminded the world that the sport of cricket is meant to be enjoyment.

Nobody talks about the concluding moment of the Ashes. That initial ball that's famous. That stray ball that reaches the slip cordon, that cover drive for four, that dismissal, clean bowled! Last balls? I had to research them. Ali cutting a stroke behind to finish an innings loss in a inconsequential game in 2015; Rankin being taken at slip off Harris, Rankin playing in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a 30-over collapse in a 5-0 whitewash that's been plentiful in 2014; a Steve Harmison bouncer ricocheting away Justin Langer's shoulder for extras, the sole boundary the Aussies score in a run chase they'll never get to make in 2005.

It distinguishes between speculating 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 visits to Australia have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower was removed as head coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood was sacked after another, in 2021-22. You can make a two lineups out of England players who featured in their final Test match at the back end of an tour to Australia 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 worry excessively about outcomes. Stokes, like Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, frequently remarks that if a lofted drive is taken at the rope is secondary as whether it was the correct choice to attempt it in the first place, and while fielding he's quick to praise a delivery man who gives away boundaries so long as they help bring the team nearer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the key rationale Ben Stokes tried to instruct his squad to follow this style was so they would be in a superior situation to deliver the style of play he feels will do well for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been preparing for so long, already appears as the result they can't get away from. It is this bold strategy's make or break moment. And there are too many predictions of failure in the English game for the team to escape criticism if they do endure a further disappointing result in the upcoming period. Stokes's approach has been based on defying expectations, and the flipside is it appears there are many individuals who would be thrilled to be shown right.

Given that, it's a suitable occasion to highlight that the crucial matter isn't just where this concludes, but whether or not we had fun along the way. In the recent past, England were an thoroughly poor cricket team. They had been defeated in four straight contests and were trailing in the final one, against India, when it was halted because of Covid. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost twelve of them by humiliating deficits. Eight wickets to New Zealand at the Birmingham ground, A defeat by 157 runs to India at the the famous stadium, an innings and 14 runs to Australia at Melbourne, 10 wickets to the Caribbean side in the scenic location.

The team was soundly beaten by the Windies in the venue in spring 2022 just before Joe Root resigned as skipper.

By the final stage, after all those months of testing and social distancing and biosecure bubbles and repeated losses at the hands of all opponents, they were virtually the most miserable and exhausted Test team the English cricket board had ever sent out to a playing arena. A significant portion of what Stokes and McCullum have done 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 intended to emphasize to all that it was supposed to be enjoyable, if it was meant to be something.

It still is now. Although the Ashes is on the line, and regardless if the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they go about competing. Daily routines has a way of intruding, it can be difficult to remember the knowledge we acquire in our toughest times.

Here is the national side that secured successive fourth-innings chases of significant totals in one summer against New Zealand; that scored a massive 378 to defeat India that same summer; that became the pioneering away squad to win a whitewash in the host nation; that fought back to a draw after going trailing by two matches in the the series; that beat India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever executed in the subcontinent, and then overcame Pakistan in the city off the back of a further exceptional performance.

It is the England team, too, that managed to end up losing a Test by an innings even though the rivals made a modest 326; who fetched up being defeated in one of the finer contests ever staged after making a confident decision in the first innings against the Kiwis, and then repeated the action against the Aussies; who were routed by 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the wrong end of one of the Sri Lankan team's greatest victories. As a unit, they have recorded some of the most improbable victories, endured some of the ugliest dismissals, made some of the surprising centuries, and achieved some of the most startling five-wicket hauls in the annals of the English game.

However this prestigious tournament concludes, they have been, successively, amazing, unbelievable, absurd, exasperating, and completely, without regret, boldly entertaining.