Three in a row: West Midlands Alliance retain PSUK National Cricket title at Grace Road
The Alliance chased down South Wales & Gwent to complete a hat-trick of national titles, beating the only side to get the better of them in this year’s championship.
West Midlands Alliance are the 2026 Police Sport UK National Cricket Champions, running down South Wales & Gwent’s 172 for 8 to reach 178 for 4 with six wickets and six overs in hand at the Uptonsteel Cricket Ground, Grace Road.
It is a third consecutive national title for the Alliance, and a fourth from the last five finals. It came against the one side that had beaten them all championship.
There is a symmetry to the margin: six wickets is exactly how South Wales & Gwent accounted for the Alliance on their own patch in the group stage, the only defeat West Midlands suffered on the way to Leicester. At Grace Road it went the other way.
Conditions and the toss
The club season’s tail end brought rain, and there was little match practice to be had the weekend before. The strip had already staged England Women’s record-breaking six-wicket win over Ireland two days earlier, when the hosts chased down 282 for their highest successful run chase in women’s one-day internationals. Two days of wear later it looked a good toss to win, and Alliance skipper Jehangir Baig won it and asked South Wales & Gwent to bat.
South Wales & Gwent Dreigiau CC, 172 for 8 from 45 overs
It started badly for the Welshmen. Opener Sam Mogford was castled by Sam Cookson for 1 in the third over, leaving them 7 for 1.
Keeper Will Davey and the ever stalwart Michael “Mickey” Martin set about steadying things in awkward batting conditions, adding 58 for the second wicket before Davey appeared to lose concentration, chipped one up and was pouched by Ashley Damm off Baig’s bowling for 17.
From there it unravelled. Greg Thomas and Ashley Colston both nicked off to Daniel Walker at first slip, in the 19th and 22nd overs, for 4 and 3, and Martin received a jaffa from Damm in the 24th to depart for 49. Captain Sam Tobin walked past a straight one from William Maund in the 33rd and was bowled for 15.
Harry Turner dug in alongside Michael Samuel before being bowled by K Woods for 12, with Oliver Smyth going the same way for 2 shortly after, leaving the innings at 147 for 8.
Samuel, becalmed on nought for 16 balls, eventually found some fluency and finished unbeaten on 47, with veteran campaigner Tim Hemp not out on 7 at the other end. Tight Alliance bowling and sharp fielding had kept the Welsh side to 172 for 8 from their 45.
Damm and Maund led the way, each returning nine overs with two maidens and two wickets. Woods also took two, Cookson and Baig one apiece.
West Midlands Alliance, 178 for 4 from 39 overs
South Wales & Gwent could hardly have asked for a better start with the ball. Christopher Mobley fell early to Greg Thomas and Oliver Baker followed soon after to Lewis Jones, and the Alliance were 7 for 2 after five overs.
Whatever hope that raised was steadily ground out of them. Michael Robinson and Daniel Walker put on 88 for the third wicket before Turner finally broke through in the 27th, Smyth taking the catch to remove Robinson for 57.
After that the Welsh side were mostly spectators. Man of the Match Connor Adams swashbuckled his way to 53 not out from 29 balls, ably assisted by a more dogged 54 from 93 by Walker, who fell in the 38th chipping a full toss from Smyth to Hemp. Damm, having already taken two wickets and a catch, saw it off with 6 not out, the chase completed inside 39 overs.
Which meant that in the space of forty eight hours, the same square at Grace Road had produced two run chases won by exactly six wickets. England Women needed 282 on the Tuesday and cruised it with nearly twelve overs unused. The Alliance needed rather less on the Thursday and made considerably harder work of the start, but they got there all the same.
Neil Vaughan and Daniel Pedley stood as umpires, with Lewis Rouse scoring.
The captains
South Wales & Gwent arrived unbeaten and in their first final for fourteen years. Detective Constable Sam Tobin of South Wales Police, who took the captaincy from long serving Mickey Martin last year and plays his club cricket for Port Talbot Town in the South Wales Premier Cricket League 2, had watched the side rebuild from very little.
“After a couple of years of struggling to consistently field a team we now have a squad of around 18 who have all played a big part in our wins this year,” he said before the final.
The route there was emphatic: Thames Valley by five wickets at home, West Midlands by six away, Devon and Cornwall by 203 runs away, Gloucestershire by 301 at home, Hampshire by eight wickets in the quarter-final, and Staffordshire by 125 runs in the semi-final. Six played, six won, one of them rain-affected.
Going into Grace Road, Martin had 328 runs in the competition, while Samuel’s nine wickets had him joint top of the tournament’s wicket-takers alongside two Alliance men, William Maund and Ashley Damm. Fittingly, Maund and Damm took four of the eight wickets to fall in the Welsh innings.
For the Alliance, the story of the season was depth. Jehangir Baig, a Crime Scene Co-ordinator with nine years at the force, took over as captain after Stuart Parker retired following more than twenty years running the section, and was voted in by the players themselves. Changes to the West Midlands leave policy made availability a constant problem, and he does not believe the same team took the field in every round.
“It shows the testament of the strength of our squad and the desire of our players to play PSUK sport,” he said ahead of the final. Of his squad, he added: “The whole team has been exceptional. We have some very talented young players who play really well together. It’s the easiest team to captain and I thoroughly enjoy playing in the team as the oldest player.”
He was also quick to credit the West Mercia contingent for using their own annual leave to turn out in the earlier rounds, and described the campaign as the most successful the two forces have been in PSUK cricket history. A third straight title makes the case for him.
Asked beforehand about any rivalry between the sides, the two captains gave the whole tone of the fixture in a sentence each. “No rivalry,” said the Alliance skipper. “South Wales are a good team. We both play the game in the right way.” Tobin was a shade more pointed: “The obvious one is that we beat West Mids in the group stages.”
The Alliance were the better side on the day. South Wales & Gwent, by the end of the night, were already champing at the bit to go again next season.
Off the field
The PSUK Cricket AGM was held in the Charles Palmer Suite before play, where West Mercia’s Chief Constable Richard Cooper was elected to the Chair.
TeamPolice hosted 108 guests across the day, with hospitality opening at midday, first ball at 12.45, and afternoon tea, a drinks reception and a presentation dinner alongside senior officers and partners from across policing.
The day was made possible by match sponsors Sopra Steria, Magnet Forensics, SCC and XPS.
