Few people will have been happier at the recent win in the cricket Test series by England in the West Indies than Sir Christopher Gent, the former chief executive of Vodafone and now a non-executive director at Lehman Brothers.

Gent, a devout cricket fan who once famously waited for a cricket match to finish before launching his company's bid for Mannesmann, expressed his concern at last month's Financial News corporate awards that he might have to miss some of the cricket in the Caribbean. The problem was that the crucial Third Test which would decide if England won a series against the West Indies in the Caribbean for the first time since 1968, coincided with a Lehman board meeting in New York. "If England can wrap up the game in three days I can watch the match and then get up to New York for the meeting," said Gent. Well, as luck would have it, England, led by Michael Vaughan, trounced the Windies in three days, wrapped up the series, and a very happy Gent probably voted through all the decisions at Lehman's board meeting with a unusually broad grin on his face.