Westhoughton Cricket Club are pleased to announce that Atiq-uz-Zaman has extended his coaching contract for another 2 years to the end of the 2014 season.

Atiq will continue to coach the 14-17 year old squad on Friday evenings whilst also taking a more active role assisting the u15 manager and coaching the players on matchdays.

Club secretary Martin Hodgkiss comments ‘Atiq has been coaching the u15 squad for the last 2 seasons and during this period the team has finished second in 2011 and in the current season are positioned at the top of the league with 3 games to play’.

Both the players and club are seeing a return on the investment placed into the coaching structure at the club.

Furthermore, Atiq, who currently plays for St.Annes in the Northern League, will be playing for Westhoughton 1XI in 2013.

After assisting St.Annes to win 2 Northern Premier League titles, the last in 2011, scoring 1365 runs including 4 centuries in the process, Atiq will be more than a useful addition to the team. During his time at St.Annes, Atiq has scored 6000 runs including 17 hundreds and 35 fifties and continues to score runs this season with 750 so far including 2 hundreds.

Atiq said “After 4 seasons at St.Annes and winning the league title last season I felt ready for a new challenge and having a young family the travelling in the Northern League was proving to be too much.l believe in the clubs coaching philosophy and am really looking forward to representing the club and teaming up with the lads”

With the search already started for next years Professional, Westhoughton hope to be serious contenders in 2013.