Josh Hull was one of the headliners of England Lions’ victory over Sri Lanka last month, the Leicestershire left-armer, towering at 6ft 7in, rewarded with a Test call-up after taking five wickets in the match. But the real story? That belonged to Zaman Akhter and the South Asian Cricket Academy.
Akhter, another hulking fast bowler, took seven wickets for the Lions, the best display of a career ignited by the Academy a little over 18 months ago. At 23 he’d already played first-class cricket for Oxford MCCU and been on the second-XI merry-go-round with Derbyshire, Warwickshire and Essex. He had searched for that thing everyone needs: a chance. The Academy offered it.
Tom Brown is its managing director, the programme formed on the back of his PhD research at Birmingham City University. Brown examined the under-representation of British South Asians in professional cricket, highlighting the inequalities of a biased system. Among his findings, he found that white privately-educated British male cricketers were 34 times more likely to play professionally than state-educated British South Asians. Rather than let that number multiply, he decided to do something about it.
Dreamt up by Brown and the former England bowler Kabir Ali, the Academy, now in its third year, offers South Asian cricketers aged 18 or over opportunities to play against county second XIs. Attract the attention of the opposition, land yourself a trial, and then a pro contract can become a reality.
Akhter joined the Academy at the start of 2023, moving into a house in Birmingham with several other highly-rated prospects on the books, with the players training at Edgbaston to get ready for the summer. He didn’t have to wait long to find potential suitors. “We had a showcase day [that February] in Leyton,” says Brown. “We had open nets, invited the counties to come have a look, nothing too high-tech.” Akhter’s right-arm heat found interest from multiple sides but it was Gloucestershire who had him signed by the end of March.
Since then there have been appearances across all three formats for the county, the wickets of Joe Root and Harry Brook against Yorkshire earlier this season, and enough promise to prompt a chance with the Lions despite a middling red-ball record. The Academy producing an England international has become a real possibility. “What’s really cool about this [England] administration at the moment is they’re clearly not just looking at the county averages,” says Brown. “You don’t need a long first-class career to knock on the England door. If you’re exciting and you’re talented, then you seem to get through.”
Akhter isn’t the sole source of joy. Kashif Ali, the programme’s first “graduate”, is averaging over 50 with the bat in Division One this year for Worcestershire. The leg-spinner Jafer Chohan has just landed a Big Bash contract after a solid Blast season for Yorkshire. Zen Malik, the 10th player from the Academy to sign professional terms, made his Warwickshire first-team debut last month.
When the Spin first met Brown two years ago, the programme was operating on a meagre budget, waiting to see if support would arrive from the ECB. It came last year with the announcement of a partnership with the governing body, the extra funding helping the Academy expand. Last winter there were three regional hubs set up in Birmingham, Bristol and Bradford, with players housed together and able to access each hub’s team of coaches. Brown – who does “about nine jobs, from social media to coaching” – is managing around 65 players.
“So many people want to get involved, and we can only pick 12 on a day,” Brown says. “Our best day for the programme so far was when we played Yorkshire and Essex [second XIs] at the same time, and had 15 [other] guys trialling. So we had 39 of our players [playing]. We won a 50-over game at Yorkshire, won a three-day game at Essex, and had all these boys trialling.”
Brown set up the Academy as an “intervention” scheme, set to run for three to six years while the professional game addressed its lack of British South Asian players. Despite the Academy’s success, the goal remains to stop soon. “My aim would be after five [years],” says Brown. “We’ve proven the point: there’s talent out there. These guys are making it to England Lions, the Hundred etc. The reason why it needs to be short term is, if we go beyond that, then we’re not actually fixing the problem. We’re sort of being relied upon. The whole point is to try and change the system.”
Another message to take from the Academy is that the game needs to pay greater attention to its late bloomers. “We’re probably the best over-18s programme available right now,” says Brown, noting the end of other initiatives that provided opportunities to older heads trying to find a route into county cricket. “You had YCs [MCC Young Cricketers] and Unicorns seven or eight years ago. Now you don’t. Even with SACA, it’s really difficult [for over-18s]. We’ve still got 10 or 11 players who I think should be playing professionally right now. And even with us, we can’t get them through the door.”
A fully-fledged women’s programme remains something to work on. The Academy is currently supporting PhD research at Birmingham City University on the challenges of representation facing British South Asian women in cricket. “We know the women’s game is as poorly represented as the men’s game, if not worse,” Brown says. “But it’s trying to identify the specific reasons for that.” Brown suggests it will prompt another “intervention” programme, a reminder that fixing English cricket will take some time.
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