MUMBAI: The BCCI has denied permission to five of its top women's cricketers to play in the global women's T20 Invitational tournament in 2022 from May 1-15 in Dubai, organized by Cricket Hong Kong and Fairbreak Global, an Australia-based global gender equality initiative, on the grounds that it is clashing with the last leg of the Board's domestic Women's T20 tournament, TOI has learnt.
"The BCCI has denied to issue No-Objection certificates to the five Indian players who had signed up a contract last year to participate in this event-Smriti Mandhana, Harmanpreet Kaur, Shafali Verma, Deepti Sharma and Jemima Rodrigues. This event will start from May 1, while the BCCI's domestic women's inter-state championship will start in Nagpur from April 18. The knockouts will start from May 1. The BCCI feels that it's important for all India 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 reliable source told this paper.
