The Hundred 2021 (Inaugural): Southern Brave Win First-Ever Title at Lord's, Paul Stirling Scores 61 in the Final

Southern Brave won the inaugural The Hundred title on 21 August 2021 at Lord's Cricket Ground in London, defeating Birmingham Phoenix by 32 runs in the first-ever final of cricket's 100-ball competition. Brave posted 168/5 across their 100 balls; Phoenix were restricted to 136. Paul Stirling scored 61 off 36 balls as Player of the Match — an innings that set the platform for Brave's total. Liam Livingstone (Birmingham Phoenix) won Player of the Tournament with 348 runs and 5 wickets — from the losing finalist. Jake Lintott (Southern Brave) took 11 wickets as the competition's top bowler. Captain James Vince led Brave to the inaugural title.

The First Hundred Final: 100-Ball Cricket Debuts at Lord's

The Hundred's inaugural final at Lord's Cricket Ground on 21 August 2021 brought the 100-ball format — a new competition structure in which each team faces exactly 100 balls, with bowling changes every five or ten balls — to cricket's most historic ground for its championship debut. The format, designed by the England and Wales Cricket Board as a new gateway product to attract audiences unfamiliar with T20 cricket, produced a final between the competition's two strongest teams and delivered the kind of high-scoring, high-pressure entertainment that its creators had envisaged. Southern Brave's 168/5 — building on Paul Stirling's 61 off 36 — was defended with sufficient bowling discipline to restrict Phoenix to 136, producing a 32-run margin that gave the inaugural competition a convincing first champion.

Liam Livingstone: 348 Runs — Player of the Tournament from the Losing Finalist

Liam Livingstone (Birmingham Phoenix) winning The Hundred 2021's Player of the Tournament — 348 runs and 5 wickets from the losing finalist — was consistent with the pattern that domestic franchise competitions have consistently produced: the competition's most dominant individual performer across the full season playing for the team that loses the final. Livingstone, Lancashire's right-handed batter and leg-spinning all-rounder who had been developing his international reputation across England's white-ball circuit, produced a full-tournament campaign that confirmed his status as one of English cricket's most explosive T20 batting talents. His combination of 348 runs at high strike rate and 5 wickets made him the competition's most complete all-round contributor — an award that followed him into the England squad and the international T20 career that his Hundred performances helped accelerate.

The Hundred 2021 in Context

The Hundred's inaugural 2021 season had been planned for 2020 but was postponed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic — meaning the competition's launch came in a summer where stadium audiences were returning to English cricket after the preceding year's bio-bubble conditions. The format's distinctive features — 100-ball innings, bowling changes every five or ten balls, and team names and identities designed to attract new audiences — were new to cricket but built on the underlying mechanics of T20 that audiences already understood. Southern Brave's inaugural Hundred title, won at Lord's in front of a sold-out crowd, gave the competition's first edition the highest-profile possible conclusion — a final at the home of cricket — and a champion whose squad combined international-quality players with the Paul Stirlings whose performances confirmed that the Hundred's talent pool reached beyond the usual franchise circuit stars.