| Player: | Usman Tariq, Ashar Zaidi |
Following Ashar Zaidis move to Sussex, Church has announced the signing of Usman Tariq as their professional for 2014.
A left-hand top order batsman and right-arm off spin bowler Usman Tariq has excelled in his native Pakistan since his List-A debut at just 13 years of age. Usman, now 29, has scored over 10,000 runs in 1st class and List A matches including 3 double hundreds, 17 hundreds and 62 fifties. In 1st class matches Usman has also taken 78 wickets at an average of 30 runs per wicket.
Usman, a former Pakistani Under-19 player, has an impressive record and is an experienced and established league Professional. In the last 8 seasons as Professional for Greenmount, Radcliffe and Walkden he has scored 9489 league runs at an average of over 56 and taken 310 wickets at an average of 18 runs per wicket. In those 8 seasons Usman has scored over 1,000 league runs on 6 occasions with seasons highest of 1639 runs for Greenmount in 2006 and 1476 runs at Walkden in 2010.
During this period Usman has also played County 2nd XI matches for Lancashire, Surrey and Sussex, where he scored 121. Usman has also played with Ashar Zaidi for Gazi Tank in the recent Dhaka Premier League.
Church Secretary Andrew Bentley said: We are delighted to have signed a player with such a pedigree in both 1st class and league cricket and look forward to welcoming Usman to the Club. We would like to wish Ashar all the best for his time with Sussex CCC and also thank Sussex for their kind donation to the Club which will be used to develop our junior section. Lastly I would also like to thank Steve Hirst of CricX, the Cricket Exchange Agency, for his help in this matter.