SACA extends breakthrough initiative into new women's coaching programme

The South Asian Cricket Academy (SACA) has unveiled a new women's programme, which hopes to replicate the success of a men's set-up that has helped 18 players from under-represented communities forge professional careers since its inception in 2021.

The women's programme, launched in partnership with the equalities charity Take Her Lead, will offer a fully-funded high-performance elite programme, which will run over the next twelve months, and has called for between 6 and 10 non-professionally contracted British South Asian girls aged over 18 to apply.

The men's set-up was intended to fill a void created by the disbanding of the MCCU and MCC Young Cricketers programmes, which had previously been a means of bringing through players from British South Asian (BSA) communities that might otherwise have been lost to the professional game.

It was developed on the back of a PhD undertaken by Dr Tom Brown, in partnership with the ECB, Warwickshire and Birmingham City University, and launched a number of significant careers, including that of Kashif Ali, the prolific Worcestershire batter, and Jafer Chohan, the Yorkshire legspinner who last year became the first graduate to be selected for a senior England tour.

The pilot scheme for the women's programme was launched with a promotional video on social media, headlined by Hampshire cricketer Naomi Dattani and ex-England seamer Sonia Odedra. A number of leading coaches from across the game have been recruited, including fast-bowling coach Shahbaz Choudhary; Gemaal Hussain, the former Pakistan and Scotland Women's Assistant Coach, and Amar Rashid, brother of Adil, who has worked as a Coaching Consultant for both England Lions and West Indies.

"We are really excited to be able to launch our first dedicated Women's programme and can't wait to get things up and running," Brown, SACA's founder and Managing Director, said.

"Having worked in the Women's game as a scout and coach for the past six years I've seen first-hand how the game has grown and [am] excited that SACA will take on a leading role in helping to develop talented young British Asian female cricketers and helping them achieve their ambitions to break into the professional game.

"We are thrilled to have the support of Take Her Lead, and are sure support from their experts in Women's performance can emulate the success of the SACA men's programme.

"We are confident that with the right approach, we can very quickly start to see similar results from SACA's female programme and start to emulate the success our Men's programme has delivered for so many talented cricketers."

An advisory group, chaired by the former England seamer-turned-presenter Isa Guha, has also been set up, to provide strength and conditioning support, nutritional advice and sports psychology mentoring, as well as ensure the programme is built with equity and inclusion in mind.

"We are thrilled to be involved in the inaugural SACA Women's Programme, which will provide a much-needed focus for South Asian Women in cricket," Guha said. "Our role is to ensure the environment created makes these women feel like they belong in cricket, taking their background and gender into consideration.

"Our fabulous group of advisors and experts will support the development of these women, whilst also ensuring this programme is built for success."