The public image: Birla Sun Life Insurance Client: Birla Sun Life Insurance Agency: JWT, Mumbai Territory: India Verdict: 4/5 Wallowing in the woes of India's top cricketers has become something of a national pastime in recent months. A disastrous tour to Australia has followed humiliation in England. The Public Image Yet what ails one individual cricketer has stirred an ethical debate beyond the nation's cricket lovers. A Hindi-language TV ad for Birla Sun Life Insurance that first aired last month features Yuvraj Singh, a one-day international cricket specialist, addressing viewers from the stands of a rainy, floodlit stadium. It highlighted the ups and downs of sporting careers and the need for insurance initially with the warning from Singh: "If I get injured, I'm out of the team." Then, last month, Singh's family made public that he was being treated in the US for cancer. In marked contrast with other Indian personalities for whom illness remains taboo, Singh was prepared to draw attention to his plight by consenting to change the ad to: "If I have a health problem, I'm out of the team." Birla Sun Life has faced criticism for the topicality, even opportunism, of the commercial. Yet a bit of hard-edged candour amid the forced smiles of soap commercials makes for striking realism.