CoA shoots down Royal Challengers Bangalore's request for mixed-gender T20

The recent advertisement which featured India captain Virat Kohli and Indian women’s team members - Harmanpreet Kaur and Mithali Raj - fueled a lot of interest in the general public. That advertisement was part of the promotion for the mixed-gender T20 fixture which was in the planning.

However, the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) has turned down Royal Challengers Bangalore's request to conduct the fixture, as they claimed that the BCCI rules don’t allow contracted players to be part of exhibition games.

"It was part of a promotional campaign launched by the brand's sports drink. But since our policy doesn't allow players to feature in exhibition games, we had to refuse permission,"  A BCCI official told Sportstar late on Friday.

RCB were the organisers of the event and even ran a campaign #ChallengeAccepted on television and other social media platforms and had even issued a statement in April quoting RCB captain Kohli.

“Be it men or women, cricket is one game, and I want to urge fans to break the boundaries that exist in their mind that divides the sport by gender. Equality in sports is ultimately a reflection of equality in life, and if we want a better tomorrow, then we need to say #ChallengeAccepted and start breaking down all stereotypes," Kohli was quoted as saying by the franchise.