Vikram Solanki may be the first British Asian to be appointed as head coach of an English county but the only pressure he feels is to maintain Surrey’s recent success rather than worry about his status as a trailblazer. The former Worcestershire, Surrey and England batsman was named as successor to Michael Di Venuto last week, having been a coach at the Kia Oval since 2016 when Alec Stewart, the director of cricket, convinced him to pass on his 20 years of playing experience to the next generation. This latest promotion was praised by the National Asian Cricket Council as one that can inspire others from similar backgrounds, with research from Leeds Beckett University showing Solanki, who was born in India but raised in Wolverhampton, is one of only five British Asian coaches among the 118 in senior men’s county set-ups. But the 44-year-old, who has also worked as an assistant coach in the Indian Premier League with Royal Challengers Bangalore, was minded to temper the significance of this in his first press conference as Surrey’s head coach. Solanki said: “Does it bring added pressure? I don’t think so. That I’m head coach of Surrey is sufficient pressure for the fact it will be a matter of doing right by the team and being successful. It’s neither here nor there whether I am successful or not in terms of my background.” Solanki accepts that, along with the coaching landscape, the fact that only 5.8% of men’s county players are from a British Asian background, compared with around a third in the recreational game, means English cricket is statistically unrepresentative. But in his own career, one that brought 18,000 first-class runs and 54 limited overs caps for England as an elegant right-hander, he felt there have been no such barriers. “Racism in any walk of life is abhorrent,” said Solanki, who had a four-year spell as chairman of the Professional Cricketers’ Association. “I genuinely feel a sense of regret for anyone who has experienced that, in cricket or any walk of life. “However, I can only speak of my own experiences and at both clubs I’ve been involved with, and in my time with England, I consider myself very fortunate. It’s not been the case in my career. “At Surrey, with the numerous programmes to encourage involvement of people from different backgrounds, I consider it as something that’s ongoing. If [my appointment] accelerates all of those matters, then great.” Solanki takes charge of a Surrey first team that won the County Championship in 2018 and currently has five players - Rory Burns, Sam Curran, Ben Foakes, Ollie Pope and Amar Virdi - among the 30-strong England group that heads to the Ageas Bowl next week before the first Test against West Indies on 8 July. “Producing good young players, and players who go on to represent England, should be the remit for all clubs,” he said. “Surrey have put a lot of hard work into producing young England cricketers, and hopefully many of them will really continue to fly at international level in the near future.” Solanki cited Tom Moody, at Worcestershire, and Graham Ford, formerly of Surrey, as the two most influential coaches he has worked under, as well as another pioneer from his early days. “I thought back to my time at Worcestershire with Basil D’Oliveira and how he coached,” he added. “He had a ginormous personality. “I thought about how he went about things and the messages he conveyed. But it’s an entirely different time and the way he coached might have tested a few people. I was very appreciative of it at the time because I knew nothing else.”