Atreyee Poddar
Cricket and betting have often crossed paths on screen. Bollywood has spun stories around match-fixing, while Hollywood has taken on the wider sports betting industry. The theme usually comes with drama, money, and most definitely a fall from grace.
Amazon Prime’s Inside Edge put the spotlight on a fictional T20 league and the mess behind it. It shed light on power struggles, player manipulation, and plenty of betting subplots. With Richa Chadha, Vivek Oberoi, and Angad Bedi leading the cast, the series brought a binge-watch spin to cricket politics.
Emraan Hashmi played a small-time greedy gambler who found himself in the dangerous world of match-fixing. The film was perfect with romance, crime, and cricket, and its soundtrack turned into a college playlist favourite back in the late 2000s.
Gautami Krishnan and Raj Karthi star in this gritty series about Karan, a small-time gambler who gets into big cricket betting and ropes in his partner Vani to survive the dangerous game.
Based on former Indian captain Mohammad Azharuddin’s life, this film had Emraan Hashmi stepping into the shoes of the stylish batsman. It followed his rise in cricket, his personal life, and the huge match-fixing scandal that refuses to leave him.