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Picture Credit: IPL/BCCI

The funniest thing about the beautiful sport of cricket is that it can be serious, entertaining, enjoyable, breathtaking and yet bizarre at the same time. While the fans often get an opportunity to witness some of the most athletic fielding efforts or moments of brilliance on the field, there are also times when everyone is left dumbstruck because of some unusual events during the game.

Most of the times, the drama eventually results in batsmen getting out. One of the unluckiest forms of dismissals in cricket is run-out but there is a sub-variety in run-outs as well which is called 'weird run-outs'. Let us have a look at five such peculiar and hilarious incidents when more than the fielders, the batsmen played a major part in running themselves out.

1. Oh, it's a four. No, it's out!

There are many ways to get out in cricket and the easiest was displayed by Azhar Ali in a Test match against Australia. After playing a fantastic shot towards the third-man region, the Pakistan batsman thought that the ball had raced away towards the boundary as went to give a fist pump to the non-striker. However, the ball stopped before reaching the fence and Mitchell Starc threw it towards the wicketkeeper Tim Paine who dislodged the stumps as Azhar Ali just stood and saw the events unfold. That day, he probably became the only batsman to see himself getting dismissed live on the field without making any effort to save his wicket.

2. Have you ever seen a pinball runout?

The incident happened in a BBL game when Dwayne Bravo tried to play an attacking shot off the bowling of Adam Zampa. The ball went straight and struck the bat of non-striker Peter Nevill before hitting Zampa's nose and eventually smashing the stumps. Nevill was unfortunately out of the crease and as per the laws of the games, he was deemed out by the umpires. It was the most epic 'pinball stuff' ever seen on the field of cricket as the Aussie, unknowingly pulled off an outstanding run-out. Fortunately, Zampa was not injured too badly.

3. When your head and body is in but you are still out?

BBL has a tendency to produce some unique variants of run-out. Billy Stanlake, standing at the non-striker's end was called for a quick-single by the batsman O'Connor. It looked that the tall Aussie would comfortably complete the run with his giant strides. However, his bat, unfortunately, got stuck in the ground at the last moment, while his head and upper body were five yards inside the crease, his feet weren't. As per the rules, he was deemed out of the crease when the stumps were taken off and had to go back to the dressing room.

4. When the batsman desperately wanted to get out

There is a famous saying in cricket for batters - put a price on your wicket. It means that when a player gets a chance to bat, he/she should never throw away their wicket. However, Amit Mishra did something completely opposite to this in an IPL game. When Mishra missed a ball off James Faulkner, he took off for a quick single but the non-strike refused. He was caught in no man's land but wicketkeeper Sanju Samson failed to hit the stumps as the ball went towards Faulkner who also threw wide. However, Mishra was still not interested in going back to the crease as Samson finally hit the bull's eye as the batsman's luck ran out of fuel.

5. Did you know that a wrongly-timed jump can result in a run-out?

In one of the most bizarre run-outs in cricket, the victim was former Pakistan skipper Misbah-ul-Haq. After playing a brilliant knock, Misbah had nudged the ball towards off-side to take an easy single. However, the energetic Dinesh Karthik tried to attack the ball and threw the ball towards the non-striker's end very quickly. It wasn't quite needed as the Pakistan batsman was easily reaching the crease. But Misbah got scared after seeing the ball coming towards him and jumped to avoid getting hurt. Unfortunately, the ball went between his legs and crashed the stumps before he had reached the crease as he looked in despair.