The Indian board has refused to allow its women cricketers to take part in the Fairbreak Invitational 2022, the world’s first privately-funded women’s event to be held in Dubai from May 1 to 15.

The Cricket Hong Kong event is being hosted by the Emirates Cricket Board and will feature over 90 women cricketers from 36 countries playing across six teams. Organisers Fairbreak Global had been releasing the names of the women cricketers who were expected to participate in the event, which also has the approval of the ICC.

Among those names were Harmanpreet Kaur, Deepti Sharma and Jemima Rodrigues with the organisers expecting BCCI to give them no objection certificates. However, the organisers have been informed by BCCI that they will not be granting NOCs because of the senior women’s national T20 tournament currently underway.

“The Indian players were not allowed as the meet clashes with the domestic women’s T20 league. Also, key international players require adequate rest before the Women’s T20 Challenge,” a BCCI official said.

The national tournament was earlier scheduled for February-March, when the India team was on tour, but was postponed due to Covid. Now the knockout stages of that event will end on April 30 with the semi-finals on May 2 and the final on May 4. The only other women’s event over the next two months, the Women’s T20 Challenge, will be held during IPL play-offs, well after the end of the Fairbreak Invitational.

In the past, Indian women players from state teams like Delhi and Karnataka had been given NOCs to be part of Fairbreak’s Global XIs in 2018 and 2019. The BCCI has, unlike with male cricketers, granted NOCs for Indian women players to take part in T20 leagues overseas.