BCCI denies Women cricketers permission to play in T20 event in Dubai

A global women’s T20 Invitational tournament is set to begin on 1^st May in Dubai. The organizers for the tournament are Cricket Hong Kong and Fairbreak Global, an Australia-based global gender equality initiative.

Five women cricketers from India signed up the contract last year to participate in the tournament. The players participating in the tournament will require No-Objection Certificates from their respective boards to do so. But according to the latest news BCCI has denied NOCs to its players set to participate in the event.

“The BCCI has denied issuing No-Objection certificates to the five Indian players who has signed up a contract last year to participate in this event- Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur, Shafali Varma, Deepti Sharma and Jemima Rodrigues. This event will start on May 1, while BCCI’s domestic women’s inter-state championship will start in Nagpur on April 18. The knockouts will start from May 1. The BCCI feels that it’s important for all Indian women’s cricketers to play in the domestic T20 tournament as it’s the basis for the qualification for the 2023 T20 World Cup in February in South Africa. The Board also wants its players to be available for the Women’s T20 Challenge, which will start from around May 24,”- a source quoted by the Times of India.

Along with the players, a NOC was denied to match referee GS Lakshmi, who officiated the Women’s World Cup final between England and Australia.

Notably, the T20 event scheduled from May 1-15 in Dubai will see 90 cricketers from 36 countries participating in it. Out of the 90 players, 40 will be from the Test-playing nations while others will be from the associate nations. The players are to be divided into six groups of 15 players each.