Former Worcestershire spinner Shaftab Khalid quit county cricket when he failed to make a lasting breakthrough at New Road in the early 2000s.
But Pakistan-born, London-educated Khalid, 40, made a devious return to English county cricket by joining the Warwickshire coaching staff.
He becomes the latest recruit for the fast-growing Birmingham-based South Asia Cricket Academy (SACA).
SACA was only formed in January 2022 but has already had a great effect.
Less than a week after being trained by former Birmingham League cricketer Tom Brown and ex-England pacemaker Kabir Ali to give Asian cricketers a better chance of entering the county cricket, two of its coaching staff have been offered jobs by first-class counties. .
Kabir, cousin of Moeen, versatile player for Warwickshire and England, became assistant manager of Yorkshire, while the former captain and head coach of the Bears Jim Troughton was offered a job in Alec Stewart and Gareth Batty’s team with Surrey.
Khalid had previously worked as an academy coach with Worcestershire, for whom he made nine first class appearances and nine white ball appearances from 2003 to 2005, and was a senior performance coach for minor counties side Bedfordshire.
But, having spent the summer with SACA as an assistant/spin coach, he now becomes their first real coaching product out of a system that has already produced three players, Kasif Ali (Worcestershire), Andy Umeed (Somerset) and Zain-ul-Hassan (Glamorgan).
“I am delighted that Shaftab has become our first coaching graduate,” said SACA co-founder and chief executive Dr Tom Brown, who has just completed a PhD at Birmingham City University on this whole area of development. potentially lost cricketing skills.
“He has played a major role in the SACA program from the start and has already helped many players take their game to the next level.
“I’m sure he can continue to do that with Warwickshire.”
Khalid will primarily work with teenage boys and girls as a high performance coach within the Warwickshire academy system, helping them break into senior teams under the emerging players scheme – but will also help coach senior teams.
“SACA played against Warwickshire 2nd XI so I saw the huge talent that there is at the club,” he said. “I relish the opportunity to bring in some of these up-and-coming spinners and watch them grow.
“Warwickshire have a tough-to-beat youth system in English cricket.”
What is the South Asian Cricket Association?
“It all came out of a conversation I had with Kabir Ali during the Covid pandemic,” Dr Brown told BBC Sport.
“We are a short-term intervention program aiming to become obsolete within three to six years, acting as support for the generation of British South Asian cricketers who have no time to wait. that the system adapts its practices to become more inclusive.
“We have a three year grant to work with, thanks to Warwickshire, Essex, England and Wales Cricket Board and Birmingham City University who have all very kindly helped to fund all my research – and we already have projects derivatives across the country.
“We have a partnership with Cricket Scotland, another in Bradford, where our players have access to the Adil Rashid Indoor Centre, and Adil is one of our ambassadors.
“We are also in Bristol, where Gloucestershire allows us free sessions at County Ground, and Wellington College in Berkshire.”
