Our cricketers owe a huge debt of gratitude to Anna Hazare. Thanks to him, public attention has been diverted from the walloping they got from England in the recent Test series.

Just imagine if Anna had not entered the picture. Going by past experience, some of our cricketers' homes would have been stoned and TV anchors and columnists would have gone to town doing a tedious post-mortem on their levels of mediocrity.

Likewise, Brand Anna is now leagues ahead of our beleaguered cricket team. Reports are already doing the rounds that advertisers are a worried lot about continuing with some celebrity endorsements. “Everyone likes a winner and after this whitewash in England, product promotion campaigns with our cricketers may not quite jell,” an advertising executive said.

In contrast, Anna has caught the imagination of the nation like never before. It is now fashionable to sport an Anna cap, headband or T-shirt and smart entrepreneurs are making the most of the hysterical demand.

Anna fever

The cricketers will not be complaining though as they can happily beat a quiet retreat on landing in India. There will be no protests outside airports as the Anna fever is here to stay for sometime. By the time it tapers off, our fickle public will have forgotten the series against England. A couple of wins on home soil will make our cricketers the favourite poster boys all over again and life will go on at its happy pace. Former India captain, Ajit Wadekar, may be allowing himself a wry smile now. All it took was a 0-3 thrashing against England in 1974 to consign him to oblivion.

Till then, he was the man with the Midas touch with first-time overseas wins against the West Indies and England in 1971. This was followed by yet another series victory against England back home in '72-73. However, the '74 pounding changed all that and Wadekar suddenly found himself the fall guy.

M.S. Dhoni, similarly, became the overnight darling of the nation when he hit the winning six against Sri Lanka which won us the World Cup early this year. One wonders what it would have been like, though, if the Anna movement had started around that time. How would the public have reacted to all the goodies each cricketer received ranging from crores of rupees to fancy homes? Knowing our jingoistic nature, Dhoni and his boys would have relegated Anna to the sidelines.

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