You are the member of a cricket team. A pretty important one - first class level or up.
For some reason, you want to be as evil as possible and really screw up your team's chances in the most awesome possible way.
This is for you. These are only some ideas out of the millions possible - please suggest more in the comments.
Scene: It's the last ball of the match. 7 runs are needed. The bowler bowls. The batsman, already having given up, taps the ball towards you and is about to complete a single.
What you do: Take the ball and throw it with all your force over the boundary line farthest from you, making it six overthrows and losing the match. It might be a good idea to take off all your clothes and dance madly on a flag of your home country. Nothing like a little salt on a painful wound.
Scene: You are a trusted batsman for your team. You come in with 6 overs left and 40 runs to get. Not a huge problem in an ODI - you've shown before that you can easily score at 7 an over.
Moreover, all the fast bowlers in the bowling team have finished their quota. All that's left is a couple of part-time spinners.
What you do: Every ball, you come down the pitch as if to hit the bowler for a six, and then play a perfect defensive shot. Nod to the bowler in appreciation. Take a single off the last ball of every over. At the end of your 6 over-6 run masterpiece, raise your bat to the crowd, and do a lap of honour around the field. It'll probably be the last time you ever walk, let alone run.
Ajay Jadeja was pretty good at the above. In hindsight, maybe it was for a different reason.
Scene: There's a run-out appeal. The matter has just been referred to the third umpire.
What you do: Play the perfect gentleman and walk. This idea has multiple awesome possibilities. Extend your gentlemanliness. Whenever there's a run out appeal, walk. Whenever the ball hits your pad, run to the pavilion like a (Usain/lightning) Bolt. If you ever happen to catch a ball, explain immediately to the umpire that, contrary to the appearance of the catch having been taken 4 feet above the ground, you actually spilt the ball 2-3 times on the turf. Whenever you stop a ball just short of the ropes, look foolish and signal that it's a four/six. Play the gentleman's game.
Scene: Your team is in trouble. However, there is one batsman who can save you. We shall call him Sachin, for convenience and correctness. A wicket has just fallen. He is leaving the dressing room on his way to the crease.
What you do: You read once about a rule that a batsman is declared out if he can't reach the pitch within three minutes of the fall of the previous wicket. As Sachin steps out of the room, you suddenly faint in his arms.
He shakes you off in irritation. 20 seconds are up. Next, you fall on your knees in front of him, and propose marriage. It is likely that he will be confused, and that one minute will pass before he kicks you out of the way. 80 seconds up. Next, you catch up with him, and show him a shiny new razor, and say that you will cut your throat if he does not reciprocate your love. He is a good person, so he will spend, say, 1 minute trying to convince you not to do this. 140 seconds up. The people on the field are getting restless. Your dressing room thinks you've gone crazy.
Now he's pissed and has started running. This is where you grab his leg and refuse to let go. Hold on for just 40 second, SUCCESS. Sachin is out and your team is sure to lose.
Scene: Your team is doing well. The opposition has 200 runs to get, and has 4 overs to get them in. The captain tosses you the ball.
What you do: Easy. Start off with a few no-balls, about 20-30 should be good. Please also ensure that these are slow no-balls, which can easily be hit for six. On no account make the batsman endure the indignity of having to run (he might get out). Then a few wides might be good - the type which are so wide that square-leg could have stopped four byes if he'd stretched out his hand. At this stage, your captain has either committed suicide or killed you. Either way, your opponents are looking at a victory. After all, everyone has a bad over, as the video below should show.
You can make this better for yourself. Pretend that you've become a compulsive chucker and forgotten your action. No one can actually fault you on this. You could also overstep on each of the first twenty balls. After you are forced to bowl from a yard behind the crease, you start overstepping the popping crease.
Scene: You are the 12th man, and are made to take out drinks to the people at the centre at an important juncture in the match.
What you do: There are so many evil things you can do. Put something in the drinks which gives them explosive diarrhoea every 5 minutes. Poison the drink. Spike the drink with the strongest alcohol you know of. Put Ecstasy in the drink.
Scene: You're a respected, senior cricketer in the Indian cricket team.
What you do: Spend a year being mysterious in the dressing room and in team and selection meetings. Whenever someone says a new young cricketer is a good prospect, sneer and give a knowing laugh. Sooner or later, people will get curious. When they ask you who you know, say that all will be made known on some date (choose an awesome date like February 29th).
Two months before your date, go to the Chairman of the Selection Committee, and tell him that you have found a schoolboy cricketer who is definitely the best player in the world now. However, he is half Pakistani. It is essential that he joins us instead of Pakistan. If anyone even gets to know about him, the ISI agents will spirit him away. Therefore, his identity can only be made known on February 29. You will be the person to bring him to the ground for the critical Twenty20 final match. He will open the innings and bring glory to himself and the country.
The Chairman is impressed and agrees. You go and find the least athletic, most studious 15-year old kid in the country, and spend 2 months teaching him the forward defensive stroke. On February 29, you bring him to the ground, and watch in ecstacy as he scores a masterly 0 off 52 balls and ensures that India loses.
Your ideal child cricket prodigy (for this idea only) looks like this.
Scene: A batsman in the opposite team has just hit a ball straight up in the air
What you do: This is tougher than the others; it requires great running speed. You basically need to run straight at the guy whose catch it is, who's waiting expectantly underneath the ball. Just before you or the ball reach him, you shout 'Mine!' and take him down like they do in the more lawless variants of rugby. As you look down at his prone body, and everyone else looks at the ball rolling on the ground, you do a throat slash and a secret, devilish ritual sacrifice.
Scene: You're the captain of the Indian cricket team in the 1990s.
What you do: Lose most of your matches because of poor strategic decisions. Fix matches right and left. Consistently underperform on a personal basis. Say that 'the boys didn't play well' after every match.
Oh shit, we just described A...
Picture unrelated. Then again, maybe not.
Scene: You are known in your team as an athletic person and a quick runner.What you do: Find the two top batsmen in your team. Before an important match, go to their rooms at night and cut some tendon in their legs such that they can stand, but cannot run. Volunteer to run for each of them the next day. Run out the first batsman in a heroic way, just falling short and returning in tears to the pavilion. Beg the captain for a chance to run for the second person. Go all out on this one. When he taps the ball to the outfield for what would otherwise be an easy single, stand midway between wickets and start singing "Kitne Door, Kitne Paas".
Scene: You are batting. You have just hit the ball down the ground.
What you do: You call your partner for a run. When he is half way down the wicket, you pick up your cell phone (without leaving your crease), and start talking cosily 'Haan Ma. Aap kaise ho?' and so on. He will, of course, be run out, and hate you for ever.
Scene: You are fielding at mid-off/mid-on, as you usually do.
What you do: You are supposed to polish the ball for all the fast bowlers. You take pleasure in this, and rub it on your pants for a longer time than usual, with an expression of pleasure on your face. You then toss the ball to the bowler with a seductive smile on your face, and slowly wink at him and blow him a kiss. He will be so freaked out that he'll forget his action and everything else.
