Cricket and the consumption of time

A British report indicates loss of productivity during the World Cup. Never was a truer word spoken. I wonder how many Indian graduate students would have finished their degrees much sooner had they not spent endless hours logging into score updates, chatting on IRC, all infected by homesickness and the irrational desire to know what happened on each and every delivery during a big game. I'm a faculty member now, and here is a little secret: the Super Eights fall during my Spring Break. Oh, I assure you, I'll do serious research as well. But once in a while, I'll be checking scores. A little more frequently than warranted.

Incidentally, this won't have any impact on the Indian economy whatsoever, because all the additional wealth that will be generated by the employment of talking heads, advertisement revenues, increased sales of munchies, tea and cigarettes, will more than make up for any productivity losses from workers playing hooky.