Australia women miss out on Women’s T20 challenge due to BCCI-CA disagreement

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A disagreement between the BCCI and Cricket Australia has played a role in Australia womens’ cricketers missing out on the chance to play in the thee-team women’s T20 challenge in India.

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Meg Lanning, Alyssa Healy, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt and Beth Mooney all featured last year, when the Women’s T20 challenge was first introduced, but have not found a place in the squads announced for the upcoming expanded tournament next month. BCCI has gone from having a one-off fixture – between Supernovas and Trailblazers – last year to scheduling a three-team event including a new team, Velocity. The three-team event will be held between May 6 and 11 in Jaipur.

The bone of contention between the boards has been a particular ODI series that was agreed upon by the Boards. As per an ESPNCricinfo report, Australian men’s team were scheduled to tour India for an ODI series in January 2020, but the CA is said to have asked for it to be moved to March as the original plan will clash with the Big Bash season as well as depriving them off a series at home.

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The two boards are understood to have exchanged emails recently in a bid to arrive at a solution, only to hit a dead end each time. That has in turn, left the Australian women players in a fix as BCCI went ahead and announced the three squads for the tournament on Thursday, which included players from England, West Indies, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, New Zealand.