How Worcestershire are punching above their weight: The cup glory fuelled by Josh Baker's memory, a new home and how debt-free county find stars 'at Lidl rather than Waitrose' - including Moeen Ali's nephew and a South African working behind the bar

During practice sessions on their way to winning their first one-day final for 31 years, Worcestershire’s players would often take a moment and think about him.

Sat there on his bench, nestled just yards away from the outdoor nets at the cathedral side of their picture-postcard New Road home, preparing to bat or bowl, their eyes occasionally fell on the locker plaque of the late Josh Baker.

While the loss of Baker - a talented left-arm spinner and the most popular of team-mates, who died last year aged 20 of a heart defect - undoubtedly rocked one of county cricket’s true family clubs to its core, the tragedy has also proved inspirational.

It is not only on that memorial bench where Baker’s name lives on at Worcestershire. The JB33 Foundation, a charity formed in his honour to support local cricket clubs, was on the front of the Rapids’ shirts when they won the Metro Bank Cup final at Trent Bridge last month, after sponsors Attivo made the classiest of gestures, waiving their rights for that particular competition.

During the 2024 season, Baker’s number 33 was on all Worcestershire shirts. And he was on the players' minds during the dramatic final-over victory over Hampshire at Trent Bridge a fortnight ago, when Kyle Abbott took a catch in the deep only to stumble into the boundary rope in the process, transforming a dismissal into six runs in an instant.

‘It felt like Josh was looking over everyone at the end and maybe nudged Kyle onto the line in those final moments,’ says Worcestershire chief executive Ashley Giles.

‘And how fitting it was Henry Cullen who hit it - one of Josh's best mates, if not his best mate, the guy who drove to the house in the morning to pick him up to no answer, that morning that Josh died.’

In the immediate aftermath of victory, Cullen sought out Baker’s parents Paul and Lisa among the Worcestershire contingent in the Radcliffe Road Stand. Others followed. 

‘There weren’t many dry eyes,’ admits head coach Alan Richardson, who invited the Bakers, recently made life members of the club, into the Worcestershire dressing room later that evening to share in the success.

Inside, the players also spoke about how much the day would have meant to former national football journalist John Curtis, a lifelong Pear who served as reporter for the club’s website until passing away this year. In some ways, tragedy has reaffirmed Worcestershire’s identity.

’It's a club that has real soul and character. Developing that culture with really good behaviours, and strong values, is crucial,’ Giles, who arrived in July 2023, tells Daily Mail Sport. ‘Since that moment, the guys feel like they’re playing for something else. Something bigger than just them.’

Indeed, the sense of togetherness underpinned both their Division One survival a year ago and the first victory in a one-day final since 1994’s NatWest Trophy (they also won the Pro40 League in 2007).

All-rounder Matthew Waite skipped his brother’s wedding to play in the final. Former West Indies captain Jason Holder only played five County Championship matches for the club, but remains an active and vocal member of the players’ WhatsApp group.

Joy was intertwined with disappointment, however, as the kitbags were packed away for the winter, with relegation meaning they return to Division Two of the County Championship in 2026.

‘Our goal was to do something we'd never done before, which was to stay up (in Division One) two years in a row,’ Giles says. ‘We will always try to punch above our weight. That’s really crucial. We play to win, but I think the reputation we're building as almost everyone's second favourite club is good.’

Richardson insists he wouldn’t swap survival for the cup, ‘(or) for the world, because of the feeling of the competition and the feeling of the day, how it brought people together’. He also points out that players don’t win too often across their careers, so such moments should be cherished.

‘Often when a team get relegated, it can be a pretty toxic place,' says Richardson. 'There's a lot of finger-pointing, but for us that's not been the case. We've reviewed already and we will continue to review about why we didn't get the results, but I also feel like we're in a really good place with our culture to continue to build. We’re the most promoted team, not just the most relegated.’

Worcestershire’s success transcends their own on-field results of 2025: four of Nottinghamshire’s Championship-winning team - Joe Clarke, Jack Haynes, Josh Tongue and Dillon Pennington - came through the New Road academy. As did Warwickshire's Ed Barnard, who will claim his £10,000 cheque as winner of the Professional Cricketers’ Association’s most valuable player award at a plush dinner on Thursday evening.

Internationals Moeen Ali and Nathan Smith also moved to Warwickshire and Surrey respectively, but Worcestershire accept their place in county cricket’s ecosystem.

‘As disappointing as it is to lose people, if big clubs aren't sniffing around them after a period of time with us, then we've not done the right things by them,' says Richardson. 'In an ideal world, they stay, of course, but we want to produce good young cricketers and the pitfalls are that others get interested in them.'

Giles argues: ‘Ravaged is probably the wrong word, but losing seven senior players over two years would be difficult for anyone to get over.'

Regeneration of the team has focused on producing young talent and offering opportunity to others who might not have received enough of it elsewhere - players like Tom Taylor, the leading wicket-taker across the Championship this past summer with 58, Ethan Brookes, man of the match in the three-wicket victory over Hants, Rob Jones and Ben Allison.

Worcestershire are in the bottom three of the 18 first-class counties when it comes to cricket budgets, but they know how to make the most of their resources.

‘We shop at Lidl rather than Waitrose at times, but if you shop well there's some amazing stuff to be had,’ says Richardson.

As if to prove his point, consider the back story of Daniel Lategan, who will take one of the club’s overseas slots for the next three years after creating a stir with his performances both for the club’s 2nd XI and for Kidderminster in the Birmingham League.

The South African teenager was also working behind the bar at New Road for extra cash during Worcestershire’s Twenty20 campaign this summer when Giles went to see what the fuss was all about.

‘People kept saying, "Watch out for this guy",' he says. 'And so I wanted to spend some time with him, listen to his background. Half of his family are over in South Africa, half of them are here. He's been totally committed to wanting to play in England.

‘He is such an impressive young man that I said to Richo, "What are you waiting for? You've got that sort of player, with the right character, in front of you". I’ve worked on the policy that if someone good walks past your door, open it, drag him in, and don't let him go. He's got potential to be really good.’

A prolific run scorer across all formats, Lategan, 19, began his professional career with scores of 42 not out, 46, 34, 54 and 78 in the Metro Bank Cup. He qualifies for England in August 2028.

Isaac Mohammed, 17, nephew of Moeen, is also on a three-year deal and heads to the Caribbean with England Under 19s later this month.

Although they have shown interest in England off-spinner Shoaib Bashir, Worcestershire are unlikely to add too many more domestic signings, preferring to operate with a ‘skinny’ squad of 19.  

Pakistan leg-spinner Usama Mir returns on a multi-season Twenty20 deal next summer that will see him recognised as a local player from 2027, leaving only a second overseas slot to finalise.

In fact, the biggest investment in the future will be on infrastructure rather than personnel. Having wiped off the club’s £3.8million of debt by drawing down from their £25m 'Gemini cash' - the nickname used on the county circuit for the funds generated by the ECB’s great Hundred sell-off - they are in the process of identifying an alternative site to host their matches.

The weather was kind to Worcestershire in 2025, but New Road’s positioning on a flood plain combined with the effects of global warming means the tendency for the ground to be underwater from time to time is ongoing.

‘We've been consistent with the membership around our need to look at an additional venue, and been quite clear about the word additional,’ explains Giles. ‘We're not talking about leaving New Road, where we have a lot of history (next season will mark 130 years since they moved in), but we do need a second venue that gives us more security against the climate, particularly.

‘The Hundred money ultimately gives us financial stability and sustainability that we've not had, and I don't think I'm overdoing it by saying, without that money, within a couple of years, we would be in a really bad place.

‘It gives us some stability, allows us to almost just take a breath. But this money needs to sustain us. You know, we're 160 years old. This is one hit and we need to try to make sure that money sustains us for the next 160 years.’

And so a business with a £6.5m turnover will continue to explore potential sites for development put forward by experts in the field over recent months, with a view to settling on somewhere before the Pears play another competitive match.

October is the one month of the year that county cricket shuts down, but Giles - so immersed in his first job since being stood down as England’s managing director post-Ashes defeat in 2022 - spent the first two days of it at a Leaders in Sport conference at Twickenham, listening to addresses from people such as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and contributing to brainstorming sessions with other CEOs.

November will see the players return for fitness work, ready to defend one of English domestic cricket’s three trophies and advance in another, while conforming to their good guy principles, which were brought to the fore by Baker’s loss.

It was noticeable on social media after Jake Libby lifted the cup on that dank Saturday evening at Trent Bridge - or indeed via the generous words of losing captain Nick Gubbins - just how popular winners Worcestershire were.

However, behind the scenes, Richardson will be reinforcing the culture he and Giles have fostered, making sure it does not fall the wrong side of the line.

‘Being nice is a really good attribute to have, right, but there's a huge difference between being nice and being soft as a professional sportsman,’ he says. ‘We don’t want to be considered too soft, but if we are a group of people who are actually quite nice, let's embrace that. Just don’t forget to stand up for ourselves. If we get pushed, be able to push back.’