India's Cricket World Cup squad, topless

India's 15-man Cricket World Cup squad was announced this week as PepsiCo India, the official beverage partner for the forthcoming ICC Cricket World Cup 2011, launched its new Change the Game campaign.

Five top players from the squad including captain MS Dhoni and his vice captain Virender Sehwag are presently naked waist-up and wearing nothing but body paint on the city's biggest billboards.

When I mention body paint, chances are you’ll think of Mardi Gras, Las Vegas showgirls or a Manish Arora fashion show. Now, thanks to Pepsi’s new campaign, you will think of cricket, but perhaps, not in a good way.

The Pepsi billboards feature players from the Indian cricket team sporting body paint on their naked torsos.

The idea behind the campaign, it seems, is to reflect the vibrancy and spirit of the game by coating individual players in a particular design and using colors that mirror their unique, on-field personas. 

So you have Mahendra Singh Dhoni with his ‘Fire in the belly,’ Harbhajan Singh’s ‘Fiery Ball’ and Virender Sehwag sporting his ‘Moving Star.’

Now don’t get me wrong, these guys are gods in their own right, and look great when playing on a pitch, but the reason they retire to locker rooms at the end of a match, is because no one really wants to see them with their shirts off.

Of course we all remember Sourav Ganguly throwing off his tee in his moment of victory at Lords in 2002, but that was a single moment. And it was real. And we never want to see it again.

In fact, no Indian player has ever stripped in such fashion since.

Maybe it’s because deep down, Indians are still a conservative lot when it comes to public displays of nudity. A visit to a Mumbai beach on a Sunday afternoon is all you need to realize that salwar suits, saris, trousers and shirts are not just casual wear in India, they are also considered swimwear.

The new campaign is meant to reflect the fervor India's youth -- dubbed Youngistaanis -- have for what is more often described as a faith, not a sport here.

"And what can be more passionate than wearing it on your body?" asks Sandeep Singh Arora, executive vice president - marketing, cola, PepsiCo India.

But you have to wonder how fans will react on seeing their favorite players tweezed, waxed and airbrushed into what looks like a cast shot from the Cirque De Soleil rather than a fresh, exciting campaign for a soft drink.

Will they get all charged up with this sudden burst of color? Will they pour buckets of lacquer on each other in the matches to come? Will they oust Bollywood actor Saif Ali Khan from his Asian Paints campaign and want a hairless Sehwag there instead?

Or will they just think this whole campaign is as boring as watching paint dry?

With the fickle minds of ‘Youngistaan’, you just never know.