In this new series exploring the biggest scandal in cricket, the director Supriya Sobti Gupta shows how a single report blew the lid on a big scandal. The Caught Out Crime Corruption Cricket trailer shows how India’s hegemony on the sport of Cricket and the kind of controversy that caused the sport to be entirely reassessed.
The trailer starts off by showing some archival footage of people standing outside electronic shops to catch the cricket game. It then moves on to show little kids playing it and the kind of awe-inspiring reaction they have towards the game. The narrator explains how playing cricket in the 90s was like a dream for every child. This dream has now been shattered thanks to the rampant disregard for the essence of the sport and the lack of consequences for engaging in something so deeply offensive.
Through the different clips of people playing cricket, the narrator once again delves into the spontaneous and unscripted nature of the game of cricket. It was always meant to be that way and when it is not, it takes away the essence of the sport. A sports reporter recounts how he never thought the trajectory of his career would be going this way. In the background, after this dialogue, a voice says, “I knew every game’s result before it happened.” This incriminating voice makes it all the more exciting to see what the documentary has in store.
We then hear even more archival audio speaking about the inquiry into the games and the people betting on them. CBI or the Central Bureau of Investigation in India started looking into the Cricket Corruption happening in the country. The Sports Ministry had assigned this to them in order to build a case against the match-fixing controversy. Any kind of accusation made was a blow to the Indian audience because of its sheer disbelieving nature.
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One of the interviewees expressed the theory that the bookies may have had power over the players. And another news clip showed the anchor declaring that the One Day International matches were indeed fixed. We then cut to another audio clip playing that said how the bookie essentially never loses. At the end of the day, they always stand to gain some money at the end of this. They are ready to inflict violence upon those who don’t pay back.
What was once a gentlemen’s sport is now revealed as one hiding under the drapes of its stellar reputation. This investigative report opened people’s eyes to the fact that owning the reins to world cricket can be dangerous and vicious. Since cricket has such emotional resonance with people in India, the match-fixing allegation was a blow to most people bordering on deep betrayal. However, there were some other people who expressed how outrageous and downright libellous these allegations were.
Soon, we start hearing an overlap of voices talking about the game and its tarnished reputation. Cricket was not as it seemed at all. The sport had lost its charm, instead, it was now a bunch of players on the field roaming like puppets hanging on strings of money. In fact, the response to such an accusation was so extreme that archival footage shows many people burning dolls and marching down the streets in anger, holding sticks, ready to cause some damage.
The maddening response to the sport’s downfall is something unexpected. Loss is funnily blind to animate and inanimate objects and this documentary trailer proves just the same. Even the bookies agree, they were never the heroes.
Watch the Caught Out Crime Corruption Cricket Trailer
Caught Out Crime Corruption Cricket directed by Supriya Sobti Gupta will be streaming on Netflix from March 17, 2023. What kind of whistleblowing are you excited to see in the documentary? Let us know in the comments below.
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