The Hundred Men's 2024: Oval Invincibles Win Back-to-Back Titles, Saqib Mahmood Takes 3/17 in the Final

Oval Invincibles won back-to-back The Hundred (men's) titles on 18 August 2024 at Lord's Cricket Ground, defeating Southern Brave by 17 runs to become the first franchise to defend the men's Hundred championship. Invincibles scored 147/9 in 100 balls; Southern Brave were restricted to 130/7. Saqib Mahmood took 3/17 from 20 balls — a devastating spell of reverse swing — as Player of the Match. Sam Curran won Player of the Tournament with 201 runs and 17 wickets across the competition for the winning team.

Saqib Mahmood 3/17: Reverse Swing Decides the Men's Hundred Final

Saqib Mahmood's 3/17 from 20 balls in the Hundred 2024 final — a spell of reverse swing bowling that dismantled Southern Brave's middle order and left them 17 runs short of 148 — was the bowling performance that gave Oval Invincibles their title defence. Mahmood, Lancashire's right-arm fast-medium bowler who had been developing through England's international squads alongside his domestic and franchise career, generated the reverse swing that makes Lord's conditions after 40-50 overs of wear so distinctive: the old ball bending late, the batters unable to play on the line that the ball left the hand. His 3/17 restricted Brave from a position where their batting lineup would ordinarily have had the firepower to close the gap to Invincibles' 147/9.

Sam Curran: Player of the Tournament from the Winning Franchise

Sam Curran (Oval Invincibles) winning the Hundred 2024 Player of the Tournament — 201 runs and 17 wickets across the competition from the winning team — gave the 2024 edition the unusual combination of both the winning team claiming the Player of the Tournament and the Player of the Match in the final. Curran, Surrey's left-arm fast-medium bowler and left-handed lower-middle-order batter who had been one of England's most consistent white-ball all-rounders, contributed across the full Oval Invincibles campaign with the ball-taking and boundary-hitting that makes him the kind of match-impact player that the Hundred's format amplifies: one or two decisive sets of five balls can define a match, and Curran's capacity to be decisive in both disciplines made him the 2024 competition's most complete contributor.

The Hundred Men's 2024 in Context

The Hundred Men's 2024 was the fourth edition of the competition — with Oval Invincibles' back-to-back win the first instance of a team defending the men's title across the competition's first four years. Southern Brave reaching the 2024 men's final — their first men's Hundred final appearance — reflected the competitive reshuffling that had brought different franchises to the Lord's final in each of the competition's first four years across both genders. Lord's hosting the 2024 men's and women's finals on the same day (18 August 2024) continued the format established in 2021, 2022, and 2023, giving cricket's home ground four consecutive double-final days that became one of The Hundred's most commercially distinctive features.