Seifert Denies Trent Rockets the Double as Manchester Take Their First Title
The Rockets won the women's final at Lord's and lost the men's on the last ball. Manchester Super Giants are champions for the first time.
Trent Rockets went to Lord's on finals day with a chance to win both Hundred titles on the same afternoon. They left with one, and the other slipped away with the last ball of the competition.
The women's final
The Rockets were comfortable, beating Sunrisers Leeds to take the women's title after topping the group stage. Having led the table through the competition, they were the form side and played like it.
The men's final
The men's final went the other way, and it went to the very end. Tim Seifert struck the fastest fifty recorded in a men's Hundred final to drag Manchester Super Giants into a position they had no right to occupy, and Liam Dawson finished it with a six off the final ball.
It is Manchester Super Giants' first title. For the Rockets it is the second time in an afternoon that they were the better-placed side, and the only one of the two that did not come off.
The competition
Finals day capped a tournament in which the Rockets were the dominant team across both draws, which makes a single trophy an odd return. Southern Brave's unbeaten run earlier in the men's competition had looked like the story until the Rockets overhauled them at the top.
Seifert's innings is the sort that decides short-format finals: not a long stay, but an unanswerable one at exactly the point the chase looked finished.