Stokes' England have shown the world that cricket is meant to be entertainment.

Nobody talks about the last ball of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's famous. That wide that reaches the slip cordon, that elegant shot for four, that fallen stump, clean bowled! Concluding moments? I had to look them up. Moeen Ali cutting a stroke behind to end an innings loss in a dead rubber in 2015; Rankin being caught in the slips off Harris, Rankin participating in his one and only Test at the conclusion of a quick disintegration in a comprehensive defeat that's been full of them in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery deflecting off Justin Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary Australia manage in a run chase they'll not attempt in 2005.

It's the difference between questioning how things will go, and knowing how they do. One certainty is, there's no assurance there will be a positive outcome. For the previous decade, the English trips Down Under have ended in ashes, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower was dismissed as head coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after a further defeat, in 2021-22. You can make a two lineups out of national team members who played their last Test match at the tail end of an tour to Australia during the previous 25 years, and still have a several individuals over to serve as reserves for either side.

This England team have never claimed to be overly concerned about results. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the ODI squad before him, always says that if a lofted drive is grabbed near the fence matters less as if it was the proper call to execute it in the outset, and in the field he's quick to praise a delivery man who allows scoring shots so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the primary motive Stokes tried to teach his team to play this way was so they would be in a more advantageous state to produce the style of play he thinks will do well for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been preparing for so long, already feels like the conclusion they cannot escape. It is this bold strategy's decisive moment. And there are too many “I told you so’s” in the national sport for the team to get away with it if they do experience another disappointing result in the coming weeks. Stokes's approach has been based on defying expectations, and the counterpart is it appears there are plenty of people who would be thrilled to be shown right.

Considering this, it's a suitable occasion to point out that the important question goes beyond where this ultimately leads, but whether or not we found pleasure along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an thoroughly poor sports team. They had been beaten in a quartet of successive tournaments and were lagging in the fifth one, against India, when it was suspended because of the virus. They had won a single Test match out of a series of 17, and lost twelve of them by embarrassing margins. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at the Birmingham ground, 157 runs to India at the the London ground, an an innings defeat to the Australians at the MCG, 10 wickets to the Windies in the scenic location.

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

By the end, after all those months of nasal swabs and social distancing and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of all opponents, they were practically the most disheartened and weary Test team the English cricket board had ever sent out to a sports ground. A significant portion of what Ben Stokes and McCullum have accomplished in the years since was in reaction to all that, as well as the Stokes' individual trials during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a period of mental health challenges. It was designed to emphasize to all that it was meant to be enjoyable, if it was supposed to be anything.

This continues to be the case now. Even when the Ashes is on the line, and even if the team have eventually come to agree that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they approach performing. Normal existence has a way of intruding, it can be challenging to retain the lessons we learn in our lowest moments.

Presented is the English squad that achieved successive fourth-innings chases of significant totals in one season against the Black Caps; that scored 378 to overcome India that corresponding period; that became the initial visiting side to win a whitewash in the subcontinent country; that fought back to a draw after going trailing by two matches in the the series; that overcame the Indian team in Hyderabad off the back of one of the finest batting displays ever played in the subcontinent, and then defeated the Pakistani team in the location off the back of another.

It is the national side, too, that managed to end up being defeated in a Test by an large margin even though the opposition made a modest 326; who concluded being defeated in one of the more exciting matches ever contested after making a cocksure declaration in the opening session against New Zealand, and then followed suit against the Aussies; who were soundly beaten by a massive 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the losing side of one of the Sri Lankan team's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have achieved some of the surprising successes, endured some of the most embarrassing exits, scored some of the surprising centuries, and taken some of the most remarkable exceptional bowling spells in the records of the English game.

However this Ashes series unfolds, they have been, in turn, astonishing, unbelievable, unconventional, infuriating, and entirely, without regret, unapologetically enjoyable.