Possible Clues:

• Batting side with influence in practical joke?
• Interrupting calm, perhaps, soft practical joke
• Practical joke on jerk
• Joke, to an old-school jokester
• Stage influence is joke
• Joke, cricket shot towards the on side?
• Attempt, as a joke, to make somebody believe something that is not true
• Trying to make somebody believe what is not true as a joke
• Yank beneath stage producing funny trick
• Gag, say, initially performed in silence