India Inc comes to a standstill to watch India's historic win over Australia

India Inc. ground to a virtual halt in the first half on Tuesday with meetings cancelled and calls postponed as corporate honchos across levels watched India pull off a historic cricket series win against Australia.
“I had a meeting at 10.30 am, which I kept delaying and finally did it after 1.30 pm," said Parth Jindal, director, JSW Sports and MD of JSW Cement, told ET. At 1.10 pm (India time) on Tuesday, India defeated Australia at Brisbane to win the Border-Gavaskar trophy. Australia had not lost at the venue for 32 years while India were fielding virtually a second-string side due to injuries to several first team players, with captain Virat Kohli also absent.

Jindal like many was up since 5.30 am on Tuesday, yo-yoing between panic and finally, euphoria. "I was up at 5:45 am and watched every single ball after that," he told ET.

The moment the match was over - top corporate heads Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet - Google's parent firm; Anand Mahindra, chairman of Mahindra Group, Harsh Goenka, chairman of RPG; Kiran Mazumdar Shaw, executive chairperson of Biocon; Rishad Premji- chairman of Wipro, among others, posted their reactions on Twitter.

RPG chairman Harsh Goenka was part of a Board meeting and the entire Board decided to take a 20 minutes break to watch India win the series. "There are lessons in leadership, management that can be drawn from this win. Each one had a feeling of shared euphoria and this reflects the resilient, fearless crop of youngsters who are part of a new India," Goenka told ET .

And the celebrations have just begun in India. Zorawar Kalra, founder and MD of Massive Restaurants, was travelling from Delhi to Udaipur and a half an hour delay meant he could watch Rishabh Pant hit the match winning four. "The plane was on the tarmac when India won ! I was so excited and was exchanging voice messages with my friends," Kalra told ET.

Within a few hours of landing, Kalra plans to discuss with his team on putting out a special dish celebrating this victory across all his restaurants.

And it was not just the top brass of India Inc glued onto their screens. Take the case of A. Das, a senior HR manager in an FMCG firm who was listening to the cricket commentary on his phone since watching on laptop /mobile is not allowed in the office. COVID protocols meant he and his colleagues couldn't form groups in canteens anymore, so he ran down from his workstation on the second floor seven times in two hours to the tea stall next to his office where there was a TV screen put up

This was the first full-fledged series after a gap of nine months where India took on its biggest rivals.

Riding high on the anticipation and buzz, Sony Pictures Networks India (SPN), the official broadcast partner of Cricket Australia, has clocked Rs 350 crore worth of advertising from six co-presenting and 11 associate sponsors for the series.

“We are very happy with the way the series progressed and ended with a historic win. It delivered on every front for all the stakeholders- fans, broadcaster, advertisers and distribution partners. I had goose bumps watching the match today,” said Rajesh Kaul, chief revenue officer, Distribution and Head - Sports at SPN.