Jafer Chohan flew to the Caribbean on Monday as England's latest wildcard selection in their white-ball squads. A young legspinner with only 23 professional appearances, Chohan did not have a professional contract two years ago but has thrived under the guidance of Adil Rashid and his brother Amar, and has now been fast-tracked into the national set-up.
He could easily have been lost to the game altogether: Chohan spent his teenage years in the Middlesex system but was let go at 17 and had fallen out of love with cricket. He started his first summer at Loughborough University playing for the third XI, but was making his debut for Yorkshire in a televised T20 Blast game barely a year later.
There are a few different strands to unpick in the story of Chohan's rise but the central thread is the impact of the South Asian Cricket Academy (SACA), a scheme launched in late 2021 to stop talented young players dropping out of the English professional game.
Chohan was playing National Counties cricket for Berkshire in 2022 - where he encountered Shoaib Bashir - when he was recommended to SACA's founder Tom Brown. He quickly became part of the set-up, playing some of their first-ever fixtures against county second XIs and impressing county scouts at an open trial at the Adil Rashid Cricket Centre in Bradford.
He had also played club cricket against the son of Darren Gough, then Yorkshire's managing director, while their bowling coach Kabir Ali was heavily involved at SACA. By that stage, Chohan had broken into the UCCE set-up at Loughborough and in late 2022, an opportunity arose to bowl to England's batters in the nets ahead of their Test tour to Pakistan.
"I bowled to Rooty for a quite a while at one of the sessions, and at the end of that he was like, 'Do you play for a team?'" Chohan told ESPNcricinfo. "I said no - and at this moment, I'm just like, 'Oh my God, Joe Root is speaking to me. This is the coolest thing ever.' Then he was like, 'Okay, leave me your number somewhere and I'll get in contact with Yorkshire.'"
By January 2023, he had signed a professional contract and with Rashid injured at the IPL, he became Yorkshire's main spinner for the Blast. He has continued to work closely with the Rashids - both Adil and Amar - since: "They've done so much for me. They're like having two big brothers. They've properly looked after me."
After a quiet first Blast season, Chohan took 17 wickets in 10 games this year including a five-for on his 22nd birthday, defying medical advice to play through the pain of a broken thumb. That injury caused him to miss the rest of the season - including ruling him out of contention for a replacement deal in the Hundred - but at the start of October, England called.
"I woke up and saw that I had a missed call," Chohan recalled. "Then I got a call again, and as soon as I heard, 'It's Luke Wright, you've been selected to go to the West Indies,' I ran into the office. I was in my boxers still. My dad's just started this Zoom meeting - I'm just freaking out a bit over the phone, not saying anything - and then he figured out what was happening."
Rashid had hinted to Chohan that he was on England's radar. "A couple of weeks before, he said, 'Just don't be surprised if you get called up to that squad'... even last year, during the Hundred, we went out for dinner and he said, 'There's a chance in 12-18 months that you could get a call-up.' Rash has always told me that, but I've never actually believed him."
Chohan describes himself as a "good blend" between the traditional legspinner and the modern version. "I have that longer run-up, which was inspired by Shahid Afridi when I was young. I've always bowled a little bit quicker than most spinners, but I'm not as quick and flat as a Rashid Khan… watching Rash bowl has definitely made me want to still be able to have that traditional legspin side, where I can bowl it slower."
And he believes that his inexperience could play to his advantage. "I think the West Indian players will be like, 'Who is this guy?' And there won't be a huge amount of footage of me. I've got to make the most of that opportunity where I'm a bit more unknown… You don't know how many chances you're going to get to put an England shirt on, so it would be a really special feeling if I can get a game."
Chohan may find it tough to break into the side on this tour: England have no shortage of spin options, with Rehan Ahmed, Liam Livingstone, Jacob Bethell, Dan Mousley and Will Jacks joining Rashid. If a debut does come, it is more likely to be in the five-match T20I series than in the ODIs, given he is yet to play a List A game.
But regardless, his status as the first SACA graduate named in an England squad marks a landmark moment. "SACA helped me a hell of a lot," he said. "I felt like my game was in a pretty good place, but there's no real way in, once I got out of the system. It was really tough to think, 'OK, I want to become a pro cricketer, how can I actually do it?' And SACA provided that opportunity for me."