England under Stokes have shown the world that cricket is all about entertainment.

People rarely mention the concluding moment of the Ashes. It's the first that's renowned. That errant delivery that flies to slip, that cover drive for four, that fallen stump, shattering the stumps! Last balls? I had to research them. Moeen Ali cutting a stroke behind to finish an innings defeat in a inconsequential game in 2015; Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin participating in his sole Test at the tail-end of a 30-over collapse in a 5-0 whitewash that's been commonplace in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery glancing off Justin Langer's shoulder for runs, the sole boundary Australia score in a target they'll never get to make in 2005.

It distinguishes between speculating how things will go, and seeing how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no guarantee there will be a successful conclusion. For the last decade, the English visits to Australia have ended in ashes, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower was removed as manager after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after another, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a two lineups out of national team members who featured in their final Test match at the tail end of an tour to Australia during the previous 25 years, and additionally have a couple of men over to carry the drinks for each squad.

The current English side have not professed to care too much about results. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the ODI squad before him, always says that if a lifted stroke is caught on the boundary isn't as important as if it was the right decision to execute it in the beginning, and while fielding he's quick to praise a delivery man who allows scoring shots so long as they are bringing the team nearer to taking that next wicket. But then the very reason Ben Stokes tried to guide his players to play this way was so they would be in a better position to deliver the style of play he believes will perform effectively for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been training rigorously, already seems like the result they cannot escape. It is this aggressive approach's critical moment. And there are too many warnings of defeat in the English game for the team to get away with it if they do suffer another disappointing result in the next few weeks. The captain's strategy has been founded on challenging skeptics, and the counterpart is it seems that there are numerous observers who would be pleased to be shown right.

In light of this, it's a good moment to highlight that the important question is not only where this ultimately leads, but regardless of whether we found pleasure along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an thoroughly poor cricket team. They had been beaten in four consecutive series and were falling behind in the fifth one, against the Indian team, when it was suspended because of the virus. They had won a single Test match out of seventeen, and lost twelve of them by humiliating deficits. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at the Birmingham ground, 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the Oval, an an innings defeat to the Australians at Melbourne, A defeat by ten wickets to West Indies in the island nation.

The team was soundly beaten by the Windies in the venue in the early part of 2022 just before Root stepped aside as skipper.

By the end, after all those periods of nasal swabs and preventive measures and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of each rival, they were virtually the most disheartened and careworn Test team England had ever put on to a cricket field. So much of what Stokes and McCullum have achieved in the following period was in response to all that, as well as the Stokes' experiences during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a bout of anxiety. It was designed to remind everyone that it was intended as enjoyable, if it was supposed to be anything at all.

It still is now. Even when the Ashes is on the line, and although the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they tackle competing. Normal existence has a way of imposing, it can be challenging to remember the knowledge we acquire in our most difficult periods.

Here is the English squad that peeled off consecutive run chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one period against the Kiwis; that made 378 to overcome the subcontinent giants that corresponding period; that became the pioneering away squad to win a whitewash in Pakistan; that showed resilience to a stalemate after going trailing by two matches in the the contest; that defeated the Indian team in the historic venue off the back of one of the greatest innings ever performed in the the region, and then overcame the Pakistani team in the city off the back of another.

It is the national side, too, that unexpectedly end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings defeat even though the rivals made a modest 326; who fetched up being defeated in one of the more exciting matches ever contested after making a bold declaration in the initial batting effort against New Zealand, and then followed suit against the Aussies; who were soundly beaten by a massive 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the losing side of one of the island nation's most notable triumphs. Between them, they have secured some of the unlikeliest wins, suffered some of the most embarrassing exits, scored some of the surprising centuries, and secured some of the most startling exceptional bowling spells in the records of English cricket.

Regardless of how this historic contest unfolds, they have been, in turn, astonishing, preposterous, absurd, exasperating, and completely, unrepentantly, boldly entertaining.