The Indian Premier League has lived with the shadow of fixing before. It’s back under the spotlight.
A sting operation by Tehelka’s Special Investigation Team has thrown up a fresh set of allegations, this time centring on former Ranji player Rachit Bhatia and stretching from the IPL to the Delhi Premier League (DPL). None of it is proven. All of it is incendiary.
Sting Operation and a Familiar Nightmare
Tehelka says its undercover reporter posed as a bookmaker for several months, from December 2025 to August 2026, building trust and recording conversations. Across those exchanges, the magazine alleges, Bhatia spoke openly about leaking team line-ups, dabbling in spot-fixing, and even buying his way into domestic cricket.
The claims sit in a dangerous space for Indian cricket: detailed enough to alarm, unverified enough to demand caution. No court, no law-enforcement agency, no cricket board – not the BCCI, not the ICC – has established any of this so far. For now, they remain allegations in a single media investigation.
That has not stopped the ripples.
IPL 2025, CSK and the Price of a Playing XI
At the heart of the report lies the IPL’s most successful franchise: Chennai Super Kings.
According to Tehelka, Bhatia told the undercover reporter he had passed on CSK’s playing XI to London-based bookmakers during the 2025 season. The communication, the report claims, allegedly happened over Snapchat.
The numbers attached are stark. As per the investigation, Bhatia said he was paid Rs 60 lakh per match for this inside information, over five games. Total: Rs 3 crore. The report further states that he claimed the XI details came from a contact inside the CSK squad.
Tehelka does not name that player.
Other coverage of the story has dragged one name into the public conversation: CSK and Central Delhi Kings batter Vansh Bedi. But only in a very specific context. According to a Times of India report, Bedi had reported a bookie’s approach to the sport’s anti-corruption unit. That did not stop speculation from swirling, prompting Bedi to issue a strong statement, calling any links to the fixing allegations “highly defamatory” and dismissing them outright.
The Tehelka report also claims Bhatia spoke about arranging similar access to CSK’s XI for the 2026 IPL season, if a player he knew was picked in the auction. The idea, the report suggests, was to replicate the model in the DPL once the IPL window closed.
The implication is clear: not fixing balls or overs, but “line-up leaks” – the first crack in a team’s armour, and often the first thing a bookmaker wants.
DPL Under the Scanner: “Line-Up Leaks” and More
The Delhi Premier League, run by the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA), forms the second pillar of the investigation.
Tehelka describes what it calls “line-up leaks” – the alleged sharing of a team’s playing XI with bookmakers before its official announcement at the toss. In this case, the focus falls on Central Delhi Kings.
According to the report, Bhatia offered to provide Central Delhi Kings’ XIs during the 2026 DPL season. His initial quote, Tehelka says, was Rs 40 lakh per match, a figure that was later negotiated down.
The report claims Bhatia supplied playing XI information ahead of two Central Delhi Kings matches that did not match the final, officially announced teams. He is said to have blamed late changes for the discrepancy. The pressure finally told before a third game.
Ahead of a match against North Delhi Strikers on August 3, 2026, Tehelka says the XI he provided did match the official line-up at the toss. Payment for that, the report alleges, settled at Rs 3 lakh.
The investigation goes further. It claims Bhatia discussed the possibility of spot-fixing in future Central Delhi Kings matches, including what he is quoted as describing as an attempt to arrange a run-out. He also allegedly boasted of past fixing, saying he had already dipped into that world.
According to the report, Bhatia claimed he bowled two deliberate wides during the 2018–19 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy in exchange for money from bookmakers. Tehelka states that he played his domestic cricket for Nagaland.
Separately, the magazine alleges Bhatia said he had paid a bribe to secure his own Ranji Trophy selection for Nagaland in 2018–19. In his role as a school-level selector and coach in Delhi, he is also alleged to have claimed that selection in school teams across age groups could be bought.
Again, none of this has been independently verified. But the portrait painted is of a pipeline of corruption, starting at school level and running through domestic cricket into India’s most glamorous league.
DDCA Calls for Caution, BCCI Silent So Far
Once the report went public, the DDCA could not ignore it.
In a formal statement, the association urged restraint and warned against rushing to judgement on the basis of one media sting.
“DDCA would like to clarify that the allegations referred to in these reports are unverified and have not been established by any competent authority,” the statement read. “The association believes it would be inappropriate to draw conclusions about any individual, player or franchise based solely on such allegations.”
The BCCI, which has lived through the IPL’s darkest fixing scandals and rebuilt its anti-corruption framework since, has not yet made any public comment.
For now, the game sits in an uneasy pause. A sting has raised old ghosts, named new actors, and dragged the IPL and DPL back into a familiar storm. The next move belongs to the authorities: investigate, or let another cloud hang over a sport that can’t afford many more.
