Stokes' England have shown us all that cricket is all about fun.

People rarely mention the final delivery of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's famous. That stray ball that reaches the slip cordon, that cover drive for four, that wicket, clean bowled! Concluding moments? I had to research them. Ali cutting a stroke behind to conclude a batting effort loss in a dead rubber in 2015; Boyd Rankin being grabbed by the slip fielder off Harris, Rankin featuring in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a rapid downfall in a clean sweep that's been full of them in 2014; a Steve Harmison short ball ricocheting away Justin Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the sole boundary Australia achieve in a pursuit they'll never get to make in 2005.

It's the difference between wondering how things will go, and seeing how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no certainty there will be a happy ending. For the previous decade, the English visits to Australia have concluded in failure, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower was removed as coach after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after another, in 2021-22. One could assemble a two lineups out of England players who played their last Test match at the tail end of an trip Down Under during the previous 25 years, and still have a several individuals over to carry the drinks for both teams.

This England team have not asserted to be overly concerned about consequences. Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, always says that if a lifted stroke is caught on the boundary isn't as important as whether or not it was the proper call to play it in the first place, and while fielding he's quick to praise a bowler who concedes runs so long as they bringing the team closer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the very reason Ben Stokes tried to teach his team to adopt this approach was so they would be in a superior situation to deliver the brand of the game he thinks will perform effectively for them in Australia.

The upcoming Ashes, for which they have been training rigorously, already seems like the outcome they cannot escape. 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 avoid backlash if they do experience another poor loss in the coming weeks. His methodology has been predicated on proving everyone wrong, and the flipside is it seems that there are many individuals who would be delighted to be validated.

Given that, it's a suitable occasion to highlight that the key issue isn't just where this ultimately leads, but whether or not we enjoyed it along the way. In the recent past, England were an completely dismal sports team. They had been defeated in a quartet of successive tournaments and were trailing in the final one, against the Indian team, when it was halted because of Covid. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost twelve of them by embarrassing margins. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at the historic venue, A 157-run loss to the subcontinent team at the Oval, an innings and 14 runs to the Aussie team at the MCG, A defeat by ten wickets to West Indies in the island nation.

The English side was routed by the Windies in the venue in March 2022 just before Joe Root resigned as skipper.

By the end, after all those months of testing and social distancing and restricted environments and constant defeats at the hands of everyone they played, they were virtually the most miserable and careworn Test team England had ever fielded to a cricket field. So much of what Stokes and McCullum have accomplished in the subsequent years was in reaction to all that, as well as the former's personal encounters during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had endured a bout of anxiety. It was designed to remind everyone that it was intended as enjoyable, if it was meant to be anything at all.

It still is 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 somewhat adaptable in the way they go about playing the game. Everyday life has a way of crowding in, it can be difficult to hold on to the insights we gain in our toughest times.

Here is the English squad that peeled off successive final innings pursuits of three challenging targets in one period against New Zealand; that made 378 to beat the subcontinent giants that same summer; that became the pioneering away squad to win a whitewash in Pakistan; that battled hard to a draw after going two games behind in the Ashes; that beat the Indian team in the southern city off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever played in the the area, and then overcame Pakistan in the city off the back of a subsequent one.

This is the national side, too, that unexpectedly end up suffering a defeat in a Test by an innings even though the rivals made only 326; who ended up losing one of the more exciting matches ever contested after making a cocksure declaration in the opening session against New Zealand, and then repeated the action against the Australian team; who were soundly beaten by 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of Sri Lanka's most notable triumphs. Collectively, they have recorded some of the most improbable victories, suffered some of the poorest performances, achieved some of the surprising centuries, and secured some of the most startling exceptional bowling spells in the records of English cricket.

No matter how this Ashes series unfolds, they have been, one after another, incredible, preposterous, ridiculous, infuriating, and entirely, unapologetically, unapologetically enjoyable.