While the world is celebrating Usain Bolt’s stunning new 100m word record, British and Commonwealth readers, however, will be turning their thoughts to cricket – with the deciding game of the Ashes due to start on Thursday.

Forget about World Championships: it is the series of Test Matches between England and Australia that has always commanded the passion of real cricket fans.

This year’s contest is particularly exciting. In a drama that could have been structured by a Hollywood scriptwriter – if Hollywood scriptwriters understood cricket – the initiative has been first with one side, then the other. With each side having won once it all comes down to this last match.

Since our minds will be on cricket anyway, we might as well invent some business pretext to talk about it, so here a few useful things an entrepreneur might learn from cricket*.

1   Patience, patience, and patience.  

2   Persistence pays. Though when you know you are definitely on to a loser giving up can be the right thing to do, usually persistence pays. One of the clever things about the way cricket is structured is that a game can game change very quickly, and the team that seemed hopelessly behind can often snatch a victory against the odds.

3   Hard slog matters. It is often the unspectacular middle order batting that seems to be getting nowhere which determines the game. So it is in business.

4   Some decisive factors are beyond our control. It was Welsh rain that saved the English team from defeat in the First Test in Cardiff.

5   Success and failure are rarely clear cut. It is notoriously difficult to define what constitutes victory in a cricket match. It is not just a matter of piling up the most runs – in the same way that the highest sales do not necessarily make the most profitable business.

6   Playing by the rules is not enough. It is how you play within the rules that counts. There is such a thing as sportsmanship. In business, formal legality matters less than honesty.

* Our apologies to American readers but, despite what some say, baseball is not the same.