Stokes' England have demonstrated everyone that cricket is meant to be fun.

Nobody talks about the final delivery of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's famous. That errant delivery that goes to the slips, that beautiful stroke for four, that dismissal, clean bowled! Last balls? I had to research them. Moeen Ali slicing a drive behind to end an innings loss in a dead rubber in 2015; Boyd Rankin being caught in the slips off Ryan Harris, Rankin featuring in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a 30-over collapse in a clean sweep that's been plentiful in 2014; a Harmison short ball deflecting off Langer's shoulder for extras, the single four the Australian team manage 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 guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the previous decade, the English Australian tours have concluded in failure, instead of with them. Andy Flower was dismissed as manager after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after a subsequent one, in 2021-22. One could assemble a two lineups out of English cricketers who featured in their final Test match at the tail end of an trip Down Under during the past 25 years, and even have a few players over to serve as reserves for each squad.

This England team have not professed to care too much about outcomes. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the one-day side before him, frequently remarks that whether or not a lifted stroke is taken at the rope isn't as important as whether it was the right decision to execute it in the outset, and while fielding he's pleased to applaud a bowler who allows scoring shots so long as they bringing the team toward taking that next wicket. But then the very reason Stokes tried to guide his players to follow this style was so they would be in a better position to produce the kind of cricket he believes will succeed for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been training rigorously, already seems like the conclusion they are bound to face. It is this aggressive approach's critical moment. And there are an abundance of predictions of failure in English cricket for the team to get away with it if they do experience another poor loss in the next few weeks. His methodology has been predicated on defying expectations, and the flipside is it appears there are many individuals who would be pleased to be proven correct.

In light of this, it's a suitable occasion to highlight that the important question is not only where this ultimately leads, but whether or not we had fun along the way. A few years back, the English team were an completely dismal national side. They had been beaten in four consecutive series and were trailing in the fifth one, against India, when it was halted because of the pandemic. They had won a single Test match out of a series of 17, and lost a dozen of them by large defeats. Eight wickets to the Kiwis at Edgbaston, A defeat by 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the Oval, an a comprehensive loss to Australia at the iconic ground, A ten-wicket loss to the Windies in the island nation.

The team was soundly beaten by the Caribbean team in the island in spring 2022 just before Joe Root stepped down as skipper.

By the end, after all those periods of nasal swabs and isolation and biosecure bubbles and repeated losses at the hands of all opponents, they were practically the most miserable and exhausted Test team the English cricket board had ever sent out to a playing arena. So much of what Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the subsequent years was in a consequence of all that, as well as the Stokes' experiences during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had endured a series of panic attacks. It was intended to remind everyone that it was meant to be fun, if it was supposed to be anything.

This continues to be the case now. Despite when the the historic series is on the line, and regardless if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they approach competing. Daily routines has a way of imposing, it can be difficult to remember the lessons we learn in our most difficult periods.

Here is the English squad that peeled off back-to-back final innings pursuits of significant totals in one period against the Black Caps; that achieved 378 to beat India that corresponding period; that became the first touring team to win a clean sweep in Pakistan; that fought back to a tie after going two games behind in the the series; that overcame the Indian team in the southern city off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever executed in the the area, and then overcame Pakistan in the city off the back of another.

Here we have the England team, too, that somehow end up being defeated in a Test by an innings defeat even though the rivals made a relatively low total; who ended up suffering a loss in one of the finer contests ever played after making a cocksure declaration in the initial batting effort against the Kiwis, and then repeated the action against the Aussies; who were routed by 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the wrong end of one of the island nation's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have recorded some of the unlikeliest wins, suffered some of the most embarrassing exits, made some of the surprising centuries, and achieved some of the most startling exceptional bowling spells in the annals of English cricket.

Regardless of how this historic contest concludes, they have been, in turn, amazing, unbelievable, absurd, frustrating, and entirely, unapologetically, boldly entertaining.