In what has come as a huge boost for the women cricketers in India, the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has handed No-Objection Certificate (NOC) to India's T20I skipper Harmanpreet Kaur, deputy Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues and Deepti Sharma to participate in the inaugural edition of The Hundred.


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A BCCI official confirmed the development and said that the players would benefit a lot from being a part of the league that is being organised by the England and Wales Cricket Board.


"We have given NOC to four players and they are Harmanpreet, Smriti, Jemimah and Deepti. It should be a good experience for these players to go and be part of this new league," the official told ANI. 


The Hundred, which is an ECB brainchild, will feature eight teams taking on each other. The first match in the competition will be played between the women's teams of Oval Invincibles and Manchester Originals on July 21. With the BCCI granting NOCs, the stay of the Indian women players will be extended in the UK as the team is set to play one Test, three ODIs, and as many T20Is in June-July this year.


Harmanpreet, Smriti, Jemimah and Deepti were the Indian players who had played in the now-defunct Kia Super League (KSL), ECB's domestic T20 tournament. During South Africa's tour of India, Smriti had said that BCCI and ECB are in touch regarding NOCs for The Hundred.


The inaugural season of The Hundred was set to be played last year, but it got postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Hundred is a 100-ball cricket competition that will see prominent players (both men and women) featuring in the tournament later this year in the English summer.