There’s a brighter side to India ’s exit from the World Cup. Something that can cheer up disappointed fans and angry advertisers. Sri Lanka has done a great favour to Indian economy by ousting the cricket team from the World Cup. There are about 80 million cable and satellite viewing homes in India .

According to TAM ratings, the average viewership of all World Cup matches held till now stands at about 3%, with India vs Bangladesh touching a high of 7.25%. To reach the finals, India would have played at least seven more matches.

Considering a TV Rating of 7.25%, at least 5.8 million people would have watched the match. This would have resulted in a productivity loss of 371.2 million man hours (5.8 million x 8 hours x 8 matches), apart from stress faced by mothers during exams.

About 3% of 81 million TV viewers (2.4 million) were ardent cricket fans and would have sat through all eight hours in the remaining 28 matches. Thus overall, Indian team’s ouster would result in a productivity gain of 481 million man hours of work (28x2.4x8 man hours), if put to use.

The Sri Lankans have given a boost to the Indian economy by saving 54,902 man years of work (one year = 8,761 hours). Indians can build seven phases of the Golden Quadrilateral connecting Delhi , Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai spread over 5,846 kilometres all over again, with this time saved.

A daily wage skilled labourer in Delhi earns Rs 17 per hour. If put to productive use, the 481 million man hours can produce Rs 817 crore of GDP, which is 63% more than BCCI’s annual revenues of Rs 500 crore, last year. It’s 401% more than the Rs 163 crore losses, corporate India has predicted to incur due India ’s ouster.

The state electricity boards are also thanking Sri Lanka for the great favour. A TV consumes 45 watts per hour. Assuming a viewer will now switch off his TV by 12 midnight, it will save Rs 135 watts at least per viewer (not considering the electricity consumed by other appliances running simultaneously.)

This will save the electricity boards 324 million watts of electricity (3.24 lakh kilowatts) in just 28 days. According to estimates, SEB losses in India will touch Rs 1 lakh crore by 2008.

If disappointed viewers completely switch off their TVs for eight hours, it will save the government at least 8, 64, 000 kilowatts, along with many more lives — at least three Indian citizens have been reported to die due to cardiac arrest or suicide after India ’s defeat at the hands of Sri Lanka .
The education department has also thanked the Srilankan team because as per studies 85% of Indian students study during the month of March for their exams. The time spent over watching television would now be spent on studies. Also, parents who would lock the kids inside to study and stealthily watch cricket would have ample time to look into their kid's progress and help them concentrate. The number of students failing is about 3,44,562 per year in Delhi alone. If 10% of kids spend time on studies due to India's loss, the number of passing students goes up by 35thousand! The trend of students insisting on joining cricket coaching camps in the summer holidays will come down this time because of the shameful defeats. Kids will try to enroll for other sporst, which may give us champions in other sports in the next 3-4 years. That will lead to endorsements of some more products and companies. Probably, Sri Lankan team is encouraging Indians to look into other games and market other products now.