OUR JOURNEY
Sept 2018 - August 2022
Jan 2022 - Dec 2022
Jan 2023 - Dec 2023
Jan 2024 - Dec 2024
Jan 2025 - to date
The Early Years: Tom Brown undertook his PhD; 'Talent Identification & Development in high performance cricket; an analysis of the British South Asian experience in professional cricket. This was funded by the partnership of the ECB, Essex CCC, Warwickshire CCC and Birmingham City University. The results from this research sparked the realisation for the need of a programme to address the issues highlighted by research.
SACA was born: Tom Brown alongside Kabir Ali founded the 'South Asian Cricket Academy', otherwise known as SACA. This consisted of a squad of 20 players from across the country training primarily in the Midlands at Edgbaston & Birmingham City University. Thanks to funding from its fantastic partners, SACA was able to play a number of fixtures against county 2nd XIs and assisted 3 players in signing professional contracts in its first year. (Kashif Ali, Andy Umeed & Zain Ul Hassan.
SACA Year 2: After the success of year 1, SACA came back bigger and stronger; this year with an expanded programme which saw performance hubs across Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Wellington & Scotland. Summer 2023 saw an increased number of fixtures, which resulted in 4 more players signing professional deals! (Hassan Azad, Arafat Bhuiyan, Zaman Akther & Jafer Chohan).
Year 3/ The ECB: Following the signing of 9 professional contracts, SACA had demonstrated resounding proof of concept. Rewarded for its contribution to addressing the lack of BSA representation in the game, the ECB injected SACA with significant additional funding; an area which had been incredibly scarce over the first 2 years of the programme. Thanks to an increase in funding, SACA was able to further expand its reach, helping even more BSA players and coaches into the professional game (Yadvinder Singh, Hisham Khan & Zen Malik).
Year 4/ The Tour: SACA now consists of 4 hubs in the winter across the Midlands, North, South East and South West of England, culminating in a squad of ~70 players. For the first time, SACA will be joining up with a First Class Counties 1st XI Tour to Abu Dhabi in March 2025, followed by 50 fixtures in summer 2025; the most scheduled to date! Whilst the programme is being successful, it is not hoped that SACA will no longer be required after 2-3 more years, and its intention to disband is still reflected within this time frame.
