Supriya Sobti Gupta on ‘Caught Out’: I wanted to bring out the human element in Indian cricket’s match-fixing saga

Supriya Sobti Gupta is the director of Netflix’s ‘Caught Out: Crime. Corruption. Cricket,’ a documentary on the infamous 2000 match-fixing scandal that shook Indian cricket

Indian cricket had its rudest wake-up call in 2000 with the match-fixing allegations that ended the international careers of prominent players, including the former captain Mohammad Azharuddin. Many fans found it hard to reconcile with it and turned away from the game.

Over two decades later comes a new documentary on Netflix,  Caught Out: Crime. Corruption. Cricket, which looks back at the era from the mid-90s to 2000. Documentary filmmaker Supriya Sobti Gupta, a former journalist who produced titles like Bad Boy Billionaires: India and  Mumbai Mafia, tells this story from the point of view of the journalists and investigators who worked behind the scenes, who she describes as the “unsung heroes”.

In this interview, the debutant director talks about what motivated her to explore this topic after so many years, the strands in the match-fixing saga she wanted to focus on, the challenges faced in the production of this film, what drives her to pursue investigative themes, and more.

We are speaking nearly 23 years to the date when the Delhi police revealed their investigation into the match-fixing case. What made you choose to explore this topic now?

The ramifications of the 2000 match-fixing scandal are always going to be felt. Growing up in the 90s, you looked up to cricketers as heroes. I decided to make this film 20 years on because we know there was a dark period in the history of Indian cricket but we don’t know the inside workings of it.

This is similar to your other Netflix production ‘Bad Boy Billionaires: India’, where powerful people in positions of trust cheated the public. What drives you to pursue these investigative themes?

I’m a former journalist, and I find these stories quite interesting because they allow you to see your subjects from a human angle. I wanted to humanize the stories that we’re going to tell, whether it is of people in positions of power, who may have misused their positions, or cops or gangsters. .