The Hundred 2022: Trent Rockets Win Their First Title at Lord's, Sam Cook Takes 4/18 in the Final

Trent Rockets won their first The Hundred title on 3 September 2022 at Lord's Cricket Ground, defeating Manchester Originals in a low-scoring thriller with 2 balls to spare. Manchester Originals posted 120/9 in their 100 balls; Trent Rockets chased it down to win their maiden Hundred championship. Sam Cook took 4/18 in the final — the spell described as the decisive contribution — winning him Player of the Match. The 2022 final was considered the closest in the competition's history to that point.

Sam Cook 4/18: The Bowling Spell That Won the Hundred

Sam Cook's 4/18 in the Hundred 2022 final at Lord's — the best bowling figures of any Trent Rockets player in the competition that season — was the spell that restricted Manchester Originals to 120/9, making Trent Rockets' eventual chase achievable in the format's distinctive 100-ball structure. Cook, Essex's right-arm fast-medium seamer who had built his county reputation through consistent swing bowling at Chelmsford, applied the same disciplines at Lord's — using the slope and the conditions to extract movement that troubled Originals' batting lineup and prevented the acceleration that would have made a 120-ball chase more demanding. His 4/18 across his allocated 10 balls of the innings gave Trent Rockets a target that was competitive but chaseable, and the Rockets' batting unit completed it with 2 balls remaining.

Trent Rockets' Maiden Title: Nottingham's First Major Franchise Cricket Trophy

Trent Rockets winning the Hundred 2022 gave Nottinghamshire's franchise their first major title in England's new franchise format — reflecting the competitive balance that the Hundred's draft system had been designed to produce. Trent Bridge (the Rockets' home ground) is one of English cricket's most storied venues; the Rockets' Hundred 2022 win gave the Nottingham franchise their first major domestic T20-format championship. The Hundred's franchise system — with eight teams representing English cities (Nottingham, Manchester, London, Birmingham, Leeds, Southampton, Cardiff, and Southampton for the Brave) — had produced different champions in its first two seasons: Southern Brave in 2021, Trent Rockets in 2022. The competitive spread across non-London franchises in the competition's first two men's editions confirmed the format's structural balance.

The Hundred 2022 in Context

The Hundred 2022 was the competition's second full season — following the inaugural 2021 edition — and was staged across the same eight venues as the original with a similar squad structure. The competition had established itself commercially in 2021 as a format that attracted non-traditional cricket audiences; the 2022 edition built on that foundation. Lord's hosting the men's final for the second consecutive year gave The Hundred's championship match a home at cricket's most historic ground, reinforcing the competition's positioning as a premium product that could use Lord's as its flagship venue. Trent Rockets' Sam Cook — a county specialist rather than an international regular — winning the Player of the Match award in a final at Lord's was one of The Hundred's clearest early statements that the competition provided genuine opportunity for domestic players outside the international circuit's spotlight.