Ben Stokes' team have demonstrated us all that cricket is supposed to be fun.
Few recall the final delivery of the Ashes. That initial ball that's legendary. That stray ball that flies to slip, that elegant shot for four, that wicket, bowled him! Concluding moments? I had to look them up. Ali edging a shot behind to end an innings defeat in a meaningless match in 2015; Boyd Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin playing in his single Test at the tail-end of a quick disintegration in a comprehensive defeat that's been commonplace in 2014; a Harmison rising delivery glancing off Langer's shoulder for extras, the single four the Aussies achieve 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 thing's certain, there's no certainty there will be a positive outcome. For the past ten years, England's trips Down Under have finished in defeat, as opposed to with them. Andy Flower lost his job as head coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Silverwood lost his after a further defeat, in 2021-22. You can make a couple of teams out of English cricketers who featured in their final 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 each squad.
This England team have never claimed to be overly concerned about outcomes. Ben Stokes, like Eoin Morgan with the limited-overs team before him, frequently remarks that if a lifted stroke is grabbed near the fence is secondary as whether it was the correct choice to execute it in the beginning, and in the field he's quick to praise a bowler who concedes runs so long as they help bring the team toward taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the primary motive Ben Stokes tried to guide his players to adopt this approach was so they would be in a better position to produce the style of play he believes will perform effectively for them in Australia.
This Ashes series, for which they have been preparing for so long, already seems like the result they are bound to face. It is this aggressive approach's critical moment. And there are too many “I told you so’s” in English cricket for the team to get away with it if they do endure a further poor loss in the upcoming period. His methodology has been predicated on challenging skeptics, and the counterpart is it appears there are plenty of people who would be pleased to be proven correct.
Given that, it's a suitable occasion to emphasize that the important question isn't just where this ultimately leads, but if we found pleasure along the way. Four years ago, the English team were an completely dismal cricket team. They had been overcome in a quartet of successive tournaments and were falling behind in the fifth, against India, when it was suspended because of the pandemic. They had won exactly one Test match out of 17, and lost 12 of them by large defeats. A loss by eight wickets to the Black Caps at Edgbaston, A defeat by 157 runs to India at the Oval, an innings and 14 runs to Australia at the MCG, A defeat by ten wickets to the Caribbean side in Grenada.
The English side was routed by the Windies in the island in the early part of 2022 just before Joe Root stepped aside as leader.
By the end, after all those stretches of nasal swabs and preventive measures and restricted environments and repeated losses at the hands of each rival, they were virtually 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 Brendon McCullum have done in the subsequent years was in response to all that, as well as the Stokes' individual trials during his hiatus from the game in 2021 when he had suffered a bout of anxiety. It was intended to emphasize to all that it was supposed to be fun, if it was meant to be something.
It still is now. Despite when the the prestigious contest is on the line, and regardless if the team have finally recognized that they need to be a slightly versatile in the way they go about playing the game. Everyday life has a way of crowding in, it can be difficult to remember the lessons we learn in our most difficult periods.
This is the English squad that achieved back-to-back fourth-innings chases of significant totals in one summer against New Zealand; that achieved a huge total to defeat the subcontinent giants that identical season; that became the pioneering away squad to win a clean sweep in the host nation; that fought back to a stalemate after going two games behind in the Ashes; that overcame India in the southern city off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever performed in the subcontinent, and then defeated Pakistan in the location off the back of a further exceptional performance.
It is the national side, too, that unexpectedly end up losing a Test by an large margin even though the rivals made only 326; who ended up being defeated in one of the finer contests ever staged after making a cocksure declaration in the opening session against New Zealand, and then did the same thing against Australia; who were thrashed by a massive 434 runs in the venue, and who were on the losing side of one of the Sri Lankan team's finest wins. Collectively, they have achieved some of the surprising successes, endured some of the most embarrassing exits, made some of the unlikeliest hundreds, and achieved some of the most remarkable exceptional bowling spells in the annals of English cricket.
However this Ashes series shakes out, they have been, one after another, amazing, outrageous, unconventional, exasperating, and entirely, without regret, boldly enjoyable.
