SACA – REVIEW OF THE 2026 SEASON
For SACA, 2026 began with plenty of hopes of building on the Academy’s most successful year to date in 2025, when no fewer than 8 male players graduated into contracts with counties in the professional game.
That milestone year of 2025 had firmly established SACA as by far the most successful elite, high-performance Academy in the country, and took the total number of players to have moved into the pro ranks to eighteen since SACA’s foundation in 2022.
Player signings in 2026…
Whilst 2026 may not ultimately have quite lived up to the aspirations of mirroring the heady heights of last year, there was success to celebrate, and plenty of it, as four further male players made their way to counties and into life as pro cricketers.
Having performed so consistently for SACA over the last few seasons, we were thrilled to see Savin Perera join Somerset and become the 19th SACA graduate in the process, going on to feature for his new county at the tail end of the summer in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup. No one could argue that Savin’s elevation to the pro game was deserved, and most certainly it was long overdue.
Three other SACA players followed Savin to first-class counties in 2026, with each of them making well-deserved returns to the professional county ranks for the second time in their careers, as Yadvinder Singh and Mo Rizvi both signed professional terms with Leicestershire, and Hishaam Khan was contracted by Surrey for their Metro Bank One-Day Cup campaign.
Coaching success…
There was plenty of success for the SACA coaching group to celebrate too, as firstly Amar Rashid earned a call-up to the England Lions’ coaching group for the Lions’ tour to Pakistan in February.
Aadil Ali returned to his home county – appointed by Leicestershire as part of the Foxes’ First Eleven coaching group – a role he was able to fulfil alongside his ongoing commitments to SACA.
Dominic Ostler entered the international coaching ranks, joining up with Cricket Ireland as Ireland Women’s Consultant Batting Coach for their 2026 World Cup campaign.
Adeel Shafique stepped up to a new role within SACA, becoming the Academy’s first ever Second Eleven Head Coach, leading SACA’s extended squad into a series of Second Eleven fixtures with distinction across the summer.
And finally, we were also delighted to hear the news that SACA co-Founder, Kabir Ali, had returned to Lancashire, re-joining the county he represented as a player, becoming their Lead Bowling Coach in 2026.
On field highs…
As for SACA on the field, there were a string of strong positive results to enjoy, with the Academy overcoming their first-class county opponents and coming out on the winning side in no fewer than nine separate matches.
We saw a total of eleven centuries scored by SACA batsmen over the course of the season across all three formats, along with a further 30 half-centuries also notched, whilst we also witnessed five wicket hauls by SACA bowlers on new fewer than four separate occasions.
Red-ball performance round-up…
In 2026 SACA played a total of twelve red ball games, winning twice, drawing on six occasions, and being on the wrong end of results four times.
SACA used the depth of their wider squad well across the season, with 49 different players taking to the field for the Academy in the longer format of the game.
Rahul Tangirala’s incredible knock of 165 against Essex at Billericay in May was the third highest individual score ever hit by a SACA batsman, and he finished the season as one of four SACA batsmen to average over 40, alongside Feroze Khushi, Ajay Khunti and Daniyal Khan.
Khunti’s average of 54.13 saw him top the red-ball averages from the six games he played, whilst Aum Patel finished the season as SACA’s leading run-scorer, with 612 runs, having missed only one of SACA’s twelve red-ball matches. Khushi finished a close second behind Patel, with 585 runs to his name for SACA, amassed in just six red-ball games, notching two centuries and two half-centuries along the way and averaging 45.00.
With the ball, Ajay Khunti proved his worth as an all-rounder, delivered the bowling performance of the year in the red-ball format, taking a hugely impressive 7 for 31 in SACA’s comprehensive victory over Worcestershire in April.
Having emerged as the stand-out player at a Remitly talent-hunt trial held by SACA at Leyton in April, left-arm quick Jaskaran Singh quickly made a name for himself in the SACA ranks, ultimately finishing the season as SACA’s leading red-ball wicket taker, picking up 18 victims in the seven matches he played, including a five-wicket haul against a strong Essex outfit in just his second SACA appearance.
T20 performance round-up…
It was in the T20 format that SACA struggled the most, winning just three of the thirteen matches played, losing nine, with one finishing as a no result as the weather came out on top.
Again, the depth of the squad was used in the T20 format, with 42 players taking to the field in a SACA shirt.
Khushi was again in the runs, finishing as SACA’s leading run-scorer with 234 runs from the seven games he played, including two half-centuries and a top score of 69, averaging 39.00.
He pipped Gennaro Reddy to the top spot, who finished with 208 runs from just six matches played, although Reddy did hit the standout knock of the T20 season for SACA, an incredible 109 against Glamorgan in his first performance of the season for the Academy, which came off just 44 deliveries.
The only other century in the T20 format came from the willow of Khunti, proving his worth as a multi-format player, as he hit 100* against Yorkshire off 53 balls, and finished the T20 campaign with 186 runs from six games with an average of 37.20.
With the ball, Hishaam Khan finished the campaign as the leading T20 wicket-taker, with seven wickets to his name, from the seven matches he played, with best figures of 3 for 26 against Lancashire in our final T20 match of the summer.
50-over performance round-up…
Six games were played in this format in 2026, with SACA enjoying plenty of success, winning four and losing two of the matches and using 31 players in the process.
Daniyal Khan showed his class and consistency to finish as SACA’s leading run-scorer in this format, scoring 245 runs in the five games he played, with consecutive scores of 58*, 49, 44, 50 and 45, averaging 61.50.
His half-centuries were two of six that SACA batters hit in 50-over cricket in 2026, with only one batter reaching three figures, as Aum Patel smashed an unbeaten 114* against Glamorgan to see us to a comprehensive victory over the Welsh county.
Shareeq Sheikh took the honours with the ball in the 50-over format, finishing as the leading wicket-taker with 9 victims from the five matches he played, including the best return of the season for SACA in this format, 5 for 34 against Surrey at New Malden.
Remitly Festival round-up…
The Academy’s annual showcase, the Remitly Cup Festival, took place in August, with the qualifiers played out at Pickwick Cricket Club ahead of Finals Day at the picturesque setting of Wormsley Cricket Ground on the Getty Estate.
Team ‘The Cricketer’ ran out eventual winners after a hotly contested tournament, led from the front by their skipper Dylan Rawal.
Rawal finished the intra-squad tournament as the highest run-scorer, hitting 137 runs in the four matches he played, including two half-centuries – one being a match-winning 57 in the final.
Honours were shared for the leading wicket-taker of the tournament, with spin proving critical, as both Viv Hassen and Gurbaj Singh finished with seven wickets apiece. Hassen’s 5 for 22 in the final group-match at Pickwick was undoubtedly the standout bowling performance of the Festival.
In other news…
In January SACA announced the opening of its fifth elite regional hub, based in Leyton in East London, to allow the Academy to capitalise on the wealth of cricketing talent that resides within and around the area, taking the regional training hub set up to five across the country.
SACA were thrilled to announce the arrival of new commercial partners into the SACA family, with MoonWalkr, Care Nexus and Ayoosh becoming sponsors of the Academy.
The most impactful news for SACA came early in the year as plans to launch a dedicated Women’s SACA programme were revealed with an announcement in February, with an expanded Women’s programme launched in collaboration with Take Her Lead.
A full report on the Women’s inaugural campaign in 2026 can be found elsewhere on the SACA website, with the highlight undoubtedly being Riva Pindoria, who became SACA’s 20th graduate at the end of the summer, and the first female graduate of the Academy, after signing a two-year professional deal with Tier One Lancashire Cricket Women.
In summary…
All in all, as another year for SACA goes by, the impact made by the Academy continues, as does the success that SACA achieves.
Work goes on at pace to continue to create opportunities for SACA players to fulfil their dream of becoming professional cricketers, and all at the Academy look forward to achieving more success in 2026 and beyond, across both the men’s and the women’s squads.
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