Behind the scenes at the cricket academy making a difference
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“How have you not got a professional contract, playing like that?” a Surrey academy coach asks Savin Perera.
“You tell me,” Perera replies, greeting him with a handshake and a hint of a smile.
The coach pauses. “Keep the faith,” he responds as he walks off and into the pavilion.
Minutes earlier, the 27-year-old had guided the South Asian Cricket Academy’s (SACA) first team to an impressive eight-wicket victory over a strong Surrey second XI with an unbeaten 38. He is in the form of his life, the fifth leading run scorer out of all 33 leagues in the ECB’s Premier League (the highest level of semi-professional cricket in England) for Cavaliers and Carrington in Nottinghamshire.
Savin Perera helped SACA beat Surrey – and then signed a professional deal with Somerset (George Edwards/The Athletic)
Perera had heard this all before.
Despite representing England at under-19 level at the 2019 World Cup in New Zealand, and spending the following seven years having trials with over half of the 18 counties in England’s County Championship, a professional contract had eluded Perera. But a week later, Perera’s day finally came, as he signed a short-term deal with Somerset’s one-day squad for the Metro Bank competition.
He scored 58 on his debut against Nottinghamshire on Tuesday.
A day with the cricket academy making a difference
George Edwards and Madison Eades
His story is exactly why SACA, a non-profit organisation founded in 2022 by then Warwickshire CCC performance coach Tom Brown, exists. At the age of 18, counties across England and Wales release hundreds of young cricketers not deemed ready to make the jump to professional setups. Many depart without due warning or further guidance.
Perera, on Middlesex’s books when he returned from New Zealand — where he played alongside England white-ball captain Harry Brook and international team-mate Tom Banton — received little in the way of contact or explanation when the county did not retain him.
There are now more than 70 cricketers of South Asian descent, all sharing similar experiences, on SACA’s books. Players take time off from work or away from their studies to travel across the country to train and play in SACA’s environment, hoping one innings with the right people watching is enough to change their trajectory.
Coaches are volunteers with vast amounts of experience and knowledge of the English game, eager to give back to the communities from which their own successes stemmed.
Tom Brown watches SACA’s preparations (Steven Fletcher/South Asian Cricket Academy)
Brown takes every step with every player.
By the time warm-ups begin against Surrey he has spoken to players, coaches, analysts and opposition staff. Throughout the day he drifts between nets, laptops and conversations, acting as coach, mentor, motivator and, increasingly, agent.
At the end he leads the post-match appraisal, telling an attentive dressing room: “You took your opportunity against a quality side at a time of the year where things can progress very quickly.”
The players respond with cheers and applause, believing in themselves and each other that their big break could be just around the corner — as it proved for Perera.
Brown set up SACA after undertaking a PhD research project, funded by the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), into a theme he had noticed at Warwickshire.
“Fifty per cent of the talent pathway were of British-South Asian heritage, but none of the pros were — literally none,” says Brown.
The numbers at Warwickshire were extreme but did represent a broader theme across the country, where 30 per cent of recreational cricketers were of South Asian backgrounds, translating to just 5 per cent in the professional domestic game.
“We researched into what the lads were doing wrong and did not find anything that equated to the magnitude of the drop off,” says Brown. “There were a lot of things with the talent system that I wanted to highlight, and none of it was a short-term fix.”
SACA’s first team in a huddle before they fielded against Surrey (George Edwards/The Athletic)
Brown’s research coincided with a period of scrutiny on English cricket.
Movements such as Black Lives Matter and the ICEC report uncovering racism in English cricket made Brown’s findings hard to ignore, and gave him motivation to fill the void.
Brown, 33, founded SACA in the Midlands, with a squad of around 30 by the end of the first year. Four players earned county contracts in its first season. Four years later, that number stands at 19. SACA have five regional hubs across the country, plus its first, second and standalone women’s XI (the latter two new for 2026) who regularly play in friendlies against county academy sides.
The pressure to be ready to deliver at 18 or be overlooked is a harsh reality for many young cricketers, with counties “often just guessing” who to retain, Brown says. “It is a skill set game, and spin bowlers, for example, will not peak until their late 20s, so it’s a rough estimate based on predicting what might happen down the line,” he tells The Athletic.
“Many players have growth spurts in their late teens and will not be used to their body until much later, by which point the system will have given up on them.”
SACA in action bowling against Surrey (Steven Fletcher/South Asian Cricket Academy)
Bowling coach Gemaal Hussain, who played professionally between 2009-2014 for Gloucestershire, Somerset and Northamptonshire, sees it regularly.
“Talent can be overrated in your late teens,” he said. “There are other qualities that develop later on which allow you to play for longer at a higher level, and that’s what SACA aims to catch.”
While fielding at deep extra cover, SACA all-rounder Amogh Karpe, a 20-year-old Materials Science student at Oxford University, tells The Athletic he has “never enjoyed cricket more than my year here, after the unnecessary pressure I experienced in the county setup.”
SACA bids to create a balanced atmosphere of professionalism and fun to make its cricketers thrive, as many arrive still suffering from the weight of rejection. “My first game did not go well at all,” Karpe remembers, “and the rejection from Surrey was probably a huge factor, but the coaches put their arms around me and have brought back my best form.”
Against Surrey, players began to arrive three hours before the first ball was bowled.
They warmed up in the nets, and spent much of the fitness drills lead by physio Matthew Parker catching up and defying instructions, until ‘Parksy’ produced the football and allowed a hotly-contested and vocal match of ‘one-bounce’ to ensue.
SACA’s Matthew Parker attempts to lead their warm up (George Edwards/The Athletic)
But once the first delivery is bowled, SACA’s professionalism clicks into gear and it is immediately obvious why the environment is so successful.
Conversations between players turn to dot-ball percentages and obscure talents within the club cricket setup. Analyst Kevin Wan sets up his 20ft camera, allowing coaches to give instant feedback while identifying qualities that traditional scorecards miss, such as chances created and performances weighted against the quality of the opposition.
Those numbers are then cross-referenced against county squads.
If a county needs a left-arm spinner or a wicketkeeper, SACA’s coaching staff know which players fit the profile, and Brown is in constant contact with all 18 counties should trial chances arise. “SACA has become the 19th county,” says former Leicestershire batter Adil Ali, now a coach at SACA as well as at the county for whom he played.
The academy’s standing is reflected by those watching on. Surrey captain and former England opening batter Rory Burns observes throughout the day, breaking off for a 30-minute session in the nets before watching the rest of the game.
From left, Hisham Khan, Dylan Rawal, Khalid Hamidi and Amogh Karpe celebrate a wicket (Steven Fletcher/SACA)
Surrey’s highest scorer on the day is 23-year-old Nikhil Gorantla, a SACA graduate who joined in 2023 after falling out of Essex’s youth setup. He left the academy to join Surrey in 2025, largely thanks to Brown’s intuition.
“I had trials with three counties across the country until I managed to get in with Surrey,” Gorantla says. “After every good performance, Tom had something lined up for me, and the academy enabled me to continue playing at a high standard until I was ready to take my chance.
“It is so nice to come back and see new faces from only a year ago, knowing that many have taken the path I did, and seeing — based on their performance levels — just how ready they really are.”
For Brown and his coaches, there are few better advertisements for the academy than lining up against one of their own.
The difference between making it and missing out is not talent, but timing.
In 2024, Perera and Zen Malik looked in hot contention for contracts. Perera appeared the more ready but Malik scored 134 and 164 on trial for Glamorgan against Warwickshire and signed for the latter. Perera, on trials with four counties, fell short. A contract evaded him.
SACA all rounder Ajay Khunti was in the right place at the right time, too, scoring 122 in a four-day red ball game against Warwickshire this summer. The county side fielded close to its full-strength bowling attack that day, and his performance has put himself on the cusp of a contract with dialogue and trials lined up at Derbyshire and Yorkshire.
Khunti described being “thrown in the deep end” at 18 by Leicestershire, where he had been part of the academy setup since he was seven. He continued to play club and university cricket, one of the deciding factors at taking on a degree at nearby Loughborough University.
Khunti is now 25 and works in a double-glazing business with his brother. He describes how SACA gave him “a breath of life and the belief I could still make it, because it’s so tough to get back into the system once you leave.”
SACA performance coach Owais Shah leads the post-game appraisal (George Edwards/The Athletic)
Brown’s ambition with SACA was never to build a permanent institution, but to create a pathway. “It started as a six-to-eight year project,” he says. “But we have achieved our goals of representation, so it is about how we continue to help players and grow.
“It is possible to open the academy up to cricketers beyond South Asian heritage, but we must be careful that our funding from the ECB and the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC), along with various sponsors who love our work, will stay with us for that journey.”
As its young cohort prepare to disperse back to their realities across the UK, the words of performance coach and former England batter Owais Shah ring true: “If they are looking for any cricketers, that brand of cricket you showed will turn heads. You set the standard.”
Shah spoke with conviction, and his promise rang true. Along with Perera, leg spinning all-rounder Mohammed Rizvi, who took five wickets against Surrey, was announced on a similar short-term deal with Leicestershire on Monday.
SACA’s Mohammed Rizvi bowls his leg spin (Steven Fletcher/South Asian Cricket Academy)
Seven years on from leaving Middlesex, after countless trials and thousands of runs that appeared to be heading nowhere, being told to “Keep the faith” sounded like the last thing Perera needed to hear.
But SACA always had faith, and continue to reward aspiring cricketers striving to make it.