Perth shows big biz is in the long game

Unlike startups and their incremental squeals of tween delight during every IPO announcement, Big Business celebrates the Long Game. The pleasures of LG are, of course, denied to entrepreneurs enjoying bachche din. They simply haven't been playing long enough. But the pleasures of winning an LG are undeniably richer, deeper and more rewarding, both materially and meta-materially. Something India's 295-run win against Australia at Perth underlines. Of course, a win is pleasurable by itself. But a win in a Test match, that too in a series tour against the formidable Aussies, is exactly like coming up trumps in an industry - not a 'sector', farq samajhiye - where a rival behemoth has been bested. It also underlines the value and heft of the Test format in these times of IPL.

Its very length - five days with four innings - stamps Test cricket as an enterprise that demands a separate set of skills, talent and, indeed, genius. The same sort that legacy business needs to negotiate the ups and downs, lean periods and sudden market shocks on the pitch to stay on top beyond the metaphorical '20 overs'. It's really a big boys' game - 'boys' here being gender-neutral - that hoi polloi and parachuting VCs may not have the stamina and strategic brains for. But as Perth showed the last four days ended on Monday, the Long Game is in a class of its own.