ACP Pradyuman-led CID team immediately swung into the action after getting the call
By Amrut Thobbi
ACP Pradyuman was a very busy man at his office on Monday, investigating why Karnataka’s ex-Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa unexpectedly praised Sonia Gandhi and the Congress and why Indian superheroes Shaktiman or Krrish were not in the Hollywood flick, The Avengers.
All of a sudden, a phone call from the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) interrupted him which led to the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) team with another daunting challenge. A TV channel was going ballistic claiming to expose corruption in the Indian Premier League (IPL) and the BCCI wanted the CID to unearth the truth.
The ACP-led team swung into the action.
Sub-inspector Abhijeet quizzed the season’s worst-performing team, the Deccan Chargers.
“Were you told to underperform?”
“Did the opposition team win every time you lost?”
Sub-inspector Daya was assigned the job of investigating all the no-balls in IPL 5 and match the footage with the ones bowled by Pakistani pacer Mohammad Aamer during a Test match at Lord’s in 2010 against England and find possible similarities, if any, in the two cases.
Inspector Fredricks was busy investigating some of the allegedly humorous commentators in the IPL. The CID team suspects there is a strong possibility that commentators like Danny Morrison and Navjot Sidhu may have been planted by the bookies to distract the audience with their brand of humour that brings tears to the eyes of the viewers – dhooki ke ansoon, let it be clarified!
Somebody from the CID team felt Pune Warriors’ Ashish Nehra was a suspect since he conceded 21 runs off the last over to hand over a win to the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB). But ACP Pradyuman burst out laughing and shot down the suggestion, “Ashish Nehra! No, no, no! Uski to aadat hai. Bechara aisa hi hai woh.”
However, the CID team still investigated the outcome the match. And one of the first things they did was to quiz RCB owner Siddharth Mallya.
The entire CID team assembled outside junior Mallya’s hotel room. Daya, who holds the world record for breaking the highest number of doors, added one more to that number by breaking into Siddharth’s room in his inimitable style.
The RCB owner freaked out.
Siddharth Mallya (SM): Who are you guys?
Abhijeet : Dekhiye, please co-operate kijiye, Hum CID se hai.
Daya: Is RCB your team?
SM: Yes, RCB is my team.
Abhijeet: Is RCB really your team?
SM: Yes, I am 100% percent sure. RCB is my team!
ACP Pradyuman: Hmm…it means you are the owner of the RCB.
In the meanwhile, Fredricks finds a DVD of Bollywood movie Jannat – a movie that revolves around bookies and match-fixing in one of the drawers of the wall-unit in the room. The CID team gets highly suspicious about Siddharth intentions. Was the DVD purchase to learn about fixing matches?
On being quizzed, Mallya junior responded, “Well, if you guys really want to know, I’ll tell you the truth. I bought the DVD not to learn about spot-fixing but to learn the nuances of kissing from Emraan Hashmi. People have been mocking me since IPL 2011 after my failed attempt to kiss Deepika Padukone. I didn’t want to land in a similar mess and thus bought the DVD as an instructional manual."
It was time for the CID team to leave Sid Mallya alone and break the next door.
(Amrut Thobbi, an engineering graduate now pursuing Masters in journalism, is an ardent cricket fan who likes to write spoofs, like the one above. His passion for writing inspired him to give up a sales and marketing job, which he does not regret. By writing on cricket, he wants to relive his dream of becoming a cricketer. He has also worked as a freelance writer in education and technology sectors)
