England under Stokes have demonstrated everyone that cricket is all about enjoyment.

People rarely mention the final delivery of the Ashes. The opening delivery that's famous. That errant delivery that reaches the slip cordon, that elegant shot for four, that dismissal, clean bowled! Final deliveries? I had to research them. Ali edging a shot behind to finish an innings rout in a dead rubber in 2015; Boyd Rankin being caught in the slips off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his one and only Test at the fag-end of a rapid downfall in a clean sweep that's been commonplace in 2014; a Steve Harmison bouncer glancing off Justin Langer's shoulder for four leg byes, the single four the Aussies score in a pursuit they'll never get to make in 2005.

It separates between wondering how things will go, and knowing how they do. One undeniable fact, there's no guarantee there will be a happy ending. For the last decade, the English trips Down Under have finished in defeat, instead of with them. Flower was removed as manager after an embarrassing rout, in 2013-14, Silverwood was sacked after a further defeat, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a couple of teams out of English cricketers who featured in their final Test match at the conclusion of an Australian tour during the previous 25 years, and still have a couple of men over to carry the drinks for each squad.

This England team have never claimed to worry excessively about results. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the one-day side before him, frequently remarks that whether or not a aerial shot is taken at the rope isn't as important as if it was the proper call to play it in the outset, and in the field he's quick to praise a pitcher who concedes runs so long as they are bringing the team closer to taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the key rationale Stokes tried to teach his team to play this way was so they would be in a better position to produce the style of play he feels will succeed for them in Australia.

The forthcoming contest, for which they have been training rigorously, already feels like the result they can't get away from. It is this aggressive approach's make or break moment. And there are an abundance of warnings of defeat in English cricket for the team to get away with it if they do suffer another disappointing result in the coming weeks. Stokes's approach has been predicated on defying expectations, and the counterpart is it appears there are numerous observers who would be pleased to be shown right.

Given that, it's a suitable occasion to emphasize that the crucial matter goes beyond where this all ends up, but whether or not we had fun along the way. In the recent past, the English team were an completely dismal cricket team. They had been defeated in four straight contests and were trailing in the fifth one, against India, when it was halted because of the pandemic. They had won only one Test match out of seventeen, and lost a dozen of them by large defeats. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at the Birmingham ground, A 157-run loss to the subcontinent team at the the famous stadium, an an innings defeat to the Aussie team at the MCG, A ten-wicket loss to West Indies in Grenada.

The team was soundly beaten by the Windies in Grenada in March 2022 just before Root stepped aside as captain.

By the final stage, after all those stretches of health protocols and preventive measures and biosecure bubbles and constant defeats at the hands of everyone they played, they were practically the most miserable and weary 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 a consequence of all that, as well as the Stokes' experiences during his five-month break 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 intended as anything at all.

That remains true now. Even when the Ashes is on the line, and regardless if the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a little more flexible in the way they tackle performing. Normal existence has a way of intruding, it can be challenging to hold on to the lessons we learn in our lowest moments.

This is the English squad that achieved consecutive run chases of 277, 299, and 296 in one season against the Kiwis; that made 378 to overcome India that same summer; that became the initial visiting side to win a whitewash in the host nation; that fought back to a stalemate after going two games behind in the the contest; that overcame India in Hyderabad off the back of one of the greatest innings ever played in the the area, and then beat the Pakistani team in the location off the back of a subsequent one.

This is the national side, too, that somehow end up being defeated in a Test by an large margin even though the other team made a modest 326; who concluded losing one of the better Tests ever played after making a confident decision in the first innings against New Zealand, and then repeated the action against the Australian team; who were soundly beaten by 434 runs in Rajkot, and who were on the losing side of one of Sri Lanka's finest wins. Between them, they have secured some of the surprising successes, endured some of the most embarrassing exits, achieved some of the most improbable tons, and secured some of the most remarkable exceptional bowling spells in the annals of English cricket.

However this prestigious tournament shakes out, they have been, one after another, incredible, unbelievable, unconventional, infuriating, and completely, unapologetically, unapologetically enjoyable.