Ben Stokes' team have demonstrated us all that cricket is meant to be enjoyment.

Few recall the last ball of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's famous. That wide that goes to the slips, that beautiful stroke for four, that dismissal, clean bowled! Concluding moments? I had to look them up. Ali cutting a stroke behind to finish an innings rout in a inconsequential game in 2015; Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Ryan Harris, Rankin participating in his one and only Test at the conclusion of a quick disintegration in a 5-0 whitewash that's been full of them in 2014; a Harmison bouncer glancing off Justin Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the single four the Australian team achieve in a target they'll not undertake in 2005.

It's the difference between speculating how things will go, and seeing how they do. One thing's certain, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the previous decade, the English trips Down Under have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Flower was removed as manager after a crushing loss, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after a further defeat, in 2021-22. One could assemble a pair of XIs out of national team members who featured in their final Test match at the tail end of an Australian tour during the last quarter-century, and even have a couple of men over to act as substitutes for both teams.

The current English side have not professed to be overly concerned about outcomes. Ben Stokes, like Morgan with the one-day side before him, always says that regardless of whether a lifted stroke is taken at the rope is secondary as if it was the right decision to attempt it in the first place, and in the field he's quick to praise a pitcher who gives away boundaries so long as they bringing the team nearer to taking that next wicket. But then the very reason Stokes tried to guide his players to adopt this approach was so they would be in a superior situation to execute the kind of cricket he believes will succeed for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been preparing for so long, already seems like the conclusion they can't get away from. It is this aggressive approach's make or break moment. And there are too many “I told you so’s” in the English game for the team to get away with it if they do experience another bad defeat in the coming weeks. The captain's strategy has been founded on challenging skeptics, and the other side is it seems that there are numerous observers who would be thrilled to be shown right.

Considering this, it's a good moment to emphasize that the important question is not only where this all ends up, but if we found pleasure along the way. A few years back, the English team were an completely dismal national side. They had been overcome in four consecutive series and were trailing in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was postponed because of the pandemic. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost a dozen of them by humiliating deficits. An eight-wicket defeat to the Kiwis at Edgbaston, 157 runs to the subcontinent team at the the famous stadium, an innings and 14 runs to the Australians at Melbourne, A defeat by ten wickets to the Caribbean side in Grenada.

The team was soundly beaten by West Indies in Grenada in the early part of 2022 just before Root resigned as leader.

By the conclusion, after all those periods of nasal swabs and preventive measures and restricted environments and endless beatings at the hands of everyone they played, they were just about the most disheartened and careworn Test team England had ever sent out to a sports ground. A great deal of what Stokes and Brendon McCullum have done in the following period was in response to all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his time away from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a period of mental health challenges. It was designed to remind everyone that it was meant to be entertaining, if it was supposed to be anything at all.

That remains true now. Although the the prestigious contest is on the line, and although the team have finally recognized that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they approach performing. Everyday life has a way of imposing, it can be challenging to remember the knowledge we acquire in our lowest moments.

This is the English squad that achieved successive fourth-innings chases of three challenging targets in one period against New Zealand; that achieved a massive 378 to overcome India that corresponding period; that became the initial visiting side to win a whitewash in Pakistan; that showed resilience to a draw after going trailing by two matches in the the series; that beat the Indian team in the southern city off the back of one of the greatest innings ever played in the subcontinent, and then beat Pakistan in Multan off the back of a further exceptional performance.

It is the English squad, too, that somehow end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an large margin even though the opposition made a modest 326; who concluded suffering a loss in one of the finer contests ever played after making a confident decision in the first innings against the Black Caps, and then followed suit against the Aussies; who were routed by 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of Sri Lanka's greatest victories. Collectively, they have recorded some of the unlikeliest wins, endured some of the most embarrassing exits, made some of the most improbable hundreds, and taken some of the most remarkable exceptional bowling spells in the records of the national sport.

Regardless of how this prestigious tournament concludes, they have been, one after another, astonishing, outrageous, absurd, frustrating, and totally, unapologetically, unashamedly enjoyable.