They wanted to know the reason why Jinks had agreed to the awful photoshoot. They had to know the reason.

After 5 hours of wheedling from Rishu, yells from Virat and Rohit, persistence from Ash and open questions from Pujji—to which Jaddu cackled and Jinks put on a deaf ear—Jassi resorted to emotional blackmail.

"Jinks bhaiya, won't you tell me? Please?"

"Jassi, please. Let it go."

"You won't tell me?" asked Jassi.

Jinks promptly melted at the tone. By the time he'd opened his mouth to launch into the story, their whole team had slunk up to eavesdrop.

****

India vs England, 1st Test, 5th day, Trent Bridge, Nottingham

It was raining and raining and raining. India just less than 160 to chase on the last day with 9 wickets in hand, an in-form Rohit and a hard-hitting Pujji waiting to bat, and they just needed the rain to stop to give the series a perfect start.

But it was raining. And it wouldn't stop.

"They must've done cloud seeding," said Jaddu in a conspiratory tone to Jinks.

"What's that?"

"Used to bring rain to dry countries to help farming. Used to bring rain to wet countries to spare their cricket team losing a Test match."

"Oh," said Jinks seriously. "I had no idea."

Jaddu glanced around at the listless dressing room: Rohit snoring, Virat glaring out at the gloomy sky, arms folded, Siraj gazing at Virat worshipfully, Jassi and Rahul and Mayank talking quietly among themselves, Pujji—also sleeping (point to be noted, he'd been sleeping as much as Rohit lately)—a calm, peaceful scene basically.

Jaddu didn't do calm and peaceful.

"I bet I could seed clouds in India when New Zealand comes home," he said.

"No, Jad, you'd need permission from the meteorological department for that crap," refuted Jinks.

"Yes, Jinksy, so I'll fake a permission," suggested Jaddu.

"No, Jad."

"Yes, Jinksy. I can do anything."

"No Jad, even you have limitations."

"No Jinksy, I have no limitations. I was talking to my friend Jarvo the other day. We realized we're the only dudes in the world with no limitation."

"DUDES?" said Jinsky. "What are you, American?"

"British dudes these days also call themselves dudes," said Jaddu. "Jarvo does."

"Jarvo's British?" asked Jinks suspiciously. "How do you know him?"

"Oh, he and I go way back. He's been boarding in our hotel each time...2014, 2018 and this year," said Jaddu. "We were planning a cool trick, in fact, to make these uptight dudes loosen up." He indicated at the rest of the team.

"Uptight dudes?" said Jinks, offended. "Don't call them uptight."

"You're the most uptight of 'em all, no offence." Jaddu had taken on a hoarse British accent.

"What was the cool trick?" said Jinks huffily.

Jaddu told him.

Jinks stared at him, speechless.

"Not even you can pull this off, Jaddu," he said at last.

"And if I do?"

"No chance."

"And if I do?"

"Fine, what d'you want if you do?"

Jaddu told him.

Jinks shrugged. "Ok. And if you don't, you'll not play a cool trick for a week. Two weeks."

"Four weeks," said Jaddu magnimously. "Five weeks."

"You're serious?"

"Deal."

"Deal."

They shook hands on it.

_____________

After a whole minute of silence after Jinks' story ended, by which time Jaddu was blue in face trying not to laugh, Virat gave in and laughed. He shouldn't have laughed, because his Jinksy had been insulted. No one had wanted to laugh, because no one liked to encourage Jaddu to play horrible tricks on innocent people like Jinks, Bhuvi and Kuldeep.

But Virat couldn't help it, and then neither could anyone else.

"Jinks," Rohit said finally, when they'd stopped, shaking his head. "Never, ever get into a deal with Jaddu. Have you any idea how your public image has been hit by that god-awful photo?"

Jaddu was still laughing away to himself.

"Yes," said Jinks, the image of a person who'd just had a lesson well learnt. "I never will."

A/N: Finished this off quickly: my 'incomplete stories' are reaching an unmanageable number, and Soumya and I didn't find Jarvo funny the second time. What if he trasnferred COVID to our players?