PETALING JAYA, July 12 — A cleared patch of land, farm workers posing as cricket players, and crowd sound-effects from the internet.

That’s all it took for villagers in Gujarat, India to create a fake cricket tournament to court gamblers in Russia.

The con played out on a remote farm in Molipur village in Mehsana district, with organisers drawing in the first instalment of bets worth Rs 3 lakh (approximately RM16,700) before getting busted by the police.

The matches ― meant to mimic the Indian Premier League (IPL), one of the world’s biggest cricket tournaments ― were streamed live on YouTube and bets were placed through an "official” IPL Telegram channel.

Four men have been arrested for orchestrating the scheme as of Monday, reported The Times of India.

The media outlet stated that 21 farm workers and unemployed youth were paid Rs 400 per match (RM22) to act as "players” of various teams and occasionally as umpires.

"Umpires” at these matches would signal to "players” on what plays to make based on the bets received via the Telegram channel.

Bettors meanwhile, were primarily from three Russian cities: Tver, Voronezh and Moscow.

The YouTube channel of the fake IPL, Century Hitters T20, was still up at the time of writing.

Scenes from the fake matches all feature the same "cricket pitch”, a barren patch of land with what appears to be a white piece of cloth tacked on to the ground.

While most of the archived footage is soundless, The Times of India reported that livestreams of these matches had crowd-noise sound effects to lend "ambience” to the games.

Matches even featured a man mimicking famed sports commentator Harsha Bhogle ― who in turn, has expressed his amusement at the incident.

According to The Times of India, the idea for the fake IPL came about when its "chief organiser” Shoeb Davda spent eight months working at a Russian pub.

There, Shoeb met the alleged mastermind of the con, Asif Mohammed, who introduced cricket to locals at the pub - upon returning to Molipor, Shoeb set the plan in motion.

Meanwhile, police official Bhavesh Rathod told the BBC that he had "never seen a scam like this”.

"These guys just cleared a patch of land deep inside a village and began playing a match and beaming it on YouTube to make money through gambling.

"Even the local villagers were not aware of this. We know very little about the Russians who were putting bets (sic) on this game,” said Rathod.