Mohali:It was a rare sight as the entire Indian cricket team lined up before school children and washed their hands with soap to send across a message of maintaining hygiene.

The occasion was a Unicef organised event and champion batsman Sachin Tendulkar and his teammates joined hands with school children around the country to send the message across on Global Handwashing Day for better health and hygiene.

"It is extremely important to spread the awareness as it has been mentioned (by a Unicef official) that 60 per cent of diarrhoeal diseases are caused by unclean hands," Tendulkar said on the occasion.

He said that it was important to create awareness about healthy life.

It was a moment to watch as the players including Tendulkar, skipper Anil Kumble, Sourav Ganguly, Ishant Sharma, Rahul Dravid and others lined up and later took soap offered by the school children in their hands and washed them.

Spinner Harbhajan Singh took a good time to wash his hands and smiled as cameras captured the moment. He later even flashed his hands before the cameras.

Angela Walker from Unicef said 100 million children in India will wash their hands with soap at rural schools in Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Gujarat, Orissa, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Assam.

"More than 1,000 children die every day in India from diarrhoea. But the simple, cost-effective solution of washing hands with soap after defecation and before meals would greatly reduce that number," she said.
Source : PTI