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Trent Rockets Men handed Welsh Fire their first defeat of The Hundred 2026 with a nine-wicket demolition at Sophia Gardens. Ben Duckett’s unbeaten 52, Finn Allen’s 33 and a stunning diving catch to dismiss Jordan Cox after three consecutive sixes were the highlights as Rockets chased 123 with 28 balls to spare.
Trent Rockets had the answer to every question Welsh Fire’s bowlers asked on Wednesday afternoon at Sophia Gardens — and when the Fire bowlers stopped asking questions and started handing out free-hits, Duckett, Allen and Banton made them pay without mercy. Welsh Fire’s unbeaten start to The Hundred 2026 is over. Trent Rockets, meanwhile, are very much here.
Cardiff, Wales: The scoreline says nine wickets. The story says something simpler: Welsh Fire ran out of ideas and discipline at the same time, and Trent Rockets did not need to be at their best to take full advantage. Ben Duckett’s unbeaten 52, Finn Allen’s 33 and Tom Banton’s cameo of 31 buried a target of 123 with 28 balls to spare, and the only time the afternoon at Sophia Gardens truly crackled into life was when Finn Allen launched himself full-length at cover to cling on to Jordan Cox’s heave off Mitchell Santner — a catch so good that Cox, who had just hit three consecutive sixes, could only shake his head and walk.
Henry Ends the Fire’s Powerplay Fast
Trent Rockets won the toss, elected to field, and sent Matt Henry out to open the bowling. The decision looked astute almost immediately. Phil Salt, Welsh Fire’s attacking opener, planted his front foot and attempted to heave Henry over mid-on from the third delivery he faced. The ball was fuller than he expected, the connection was thin, and Salt departed for five. Seven balls later, Joe Root — playing his first match at Sophia Gardens in The Hundred 2026 after featuring for England in the T20I series — tried to ramp Henry over fine leg and got nowhere near it. Root walked for five.
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Henry finished with 2 for 16 from his 15-ball allocation: controlled, probing, varying his angles and pace to keep a Fire top order that had been threatening all competition. Welsh Fire were 26 for 2 at the end of the mandatory powerplay, scrambling for rebuilding partnerships on a pitch that held enough to reward good bowling throughout.
The rebuild arrived in the form of Matt Short and, briefly, a hard-hitting middle order. Short made 36 from 26 balls — the most assured innings of the Fire’s top five — before the middle order lost its way. At 59 for 2 at the fifty-ball mark, Welsh Fire looked positioned for something between par and competitive. Then three wickets fell in 14 balls, Short among them, and the innings fractured.
The Cox Moment — And Allen’s Answer
Jordan Cox had not read the script about the innings fragmenting. Walking in with Welsh Fire under pressure at four wickets down, the wicketkeeper-batter hit Mitchell Santner’s left-arm spin for three sixes in a row — consecutive blows of increasing ferocity, each one landing deeper than the last. The crowd in Cardiff, which had been watching something approaching a funeral, woke up. The equation changed. Cox had done the hard part.
Then he tried for a fourth. The drive was full and wide, aerial, slanting towards the cover boundary. Finn Allen, tracking it from the deep, threw himself full-length forward and clung on with both hands inches from the turf. It was the catch of the tournament so far, and it ended one of the few innings that had threatened to reshape the afternoon. Cox out for 33. Santner finished with 3 for 35 — his dismissals coming at exactly the right moments.
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Welsh Fire limped to 122 for 7, Asa Tribe and Chris Woakes unable to find the boundary off Mohammad Amir and Lewis Gregory in the closing overs. It was a total Rockets would not lose sleep over.
Duckett Plots, Allen Plunders, Banton Finishes
The chase was not, as Duckett himself freely acknowledged afterwards, a masterclass in free-flowing batsmanship. The pitch held. The Fire bowlers extracted what they could from it. And Welsh Fire handed Trent Rockets four free-hits in the powerplay alone — seven across the innings in total — from a combination of no-balls that reduced every tactical advantage they had built with the ball.
Duckett faced the first four free-hits and found the boundary with only one of them, but the runs accumulated regardless. At 42 for 0 after 25 balls, with Duckett and Allen unthreatened, the match was already moving in one direction.
Then Allen accelerated. He took 17 runs from Sam Cook’s first five-ball set, muscling the New Zealander into the leg side and over cover with the ease of a batter who understands exactly where the thin parts of the field are and has the wrists to find them. The partnership raced to 75 before Allen went lbw to fellow New Zealander Rachin Ravindra for 33 — the only genuine moment of Welsh Fire cheer in the afternoon session.
Duckett, joined by Tom Banton, completed the formality. He brought up his second fifty in as many Hundred matches from 42 balls — eight fours, patient rather than explosive, but always in control — as Banton cracked 31 alongside him to finish the chase with comprehensive ease. Trent Rockets reached 126 for 1 from 72 balls. Second in the Hundred table. Two wins from three.
Duckett, collecting his second Player of the Match award of the competition, was honest about what the afternoon had and had not been.
“The bowlers were superb. Coming here, we spoke about adapting to the pitch as early as you can. They take massive credit for this win,” he said. “My aim was to try and get through the powerplay and then it might actually become easier. It’s made a lot easier when you’ve got Finn Allen at the other end whacking it. Four free-hits really help as well, but, to be honest, I really struggled to find rhythm throughout that whole innings. I’m pretty sure everyone saw that. Finn played beautifully and Bants came in and took all the pressure off me.”
Fire’s Unbeaten Run Ends — But the Bones Are Good
For Welsh Fire, the defeat is their first of the 2026 Hundred and ends an unbeaten start that stretched back to the competition’s opening weekend. The top-order collapses — Phil Salt for five, Joe Root for five, three wickets in 14 balls through the middle — speak to fragility in the batting that better sides will probe. The no-ball count with the ball is a separate and more immediately fixable problem.
But the bones of this Welsh Fire side remain good. Root and Salt will score runs. Cox, when he doesn’t find a Finn Allen lurking at cover, is capable of match-winning cameos. The bowling, Henry aside, was sloppy rather than bad. One defeat in four games remains a reasonable position.
Trent Rockets head to Nottingham for their next fixture. After back-to-back wins with the bat, their bowling — Henry and Santner in particular — looks like the competition’s most dangerous combination at this stage of the tournament.
Scores: Welsh Fire Men 122/7 (100 balls) — Matt Short 36 (26), Jordan Cox 33 (16); Mitchell Santner 3/35, Matt Henry 2/16
Trent Rockets Men 126/1 (72/100 balls) — Ben Duckett 52* (45), Tom Banton 31 (15), Finn Allen 33 (19); Rachin Ravindra 1/4
Result: Trent Rockets Men won by 9 wickets (with 28 balls remaining)
Player of the Match: Ben Duckett (Trent Rockets Men) — 52* (45)
Key stat: Welsh Fire bowlers delivered 7 no-balls (4 in powerplay), handing Trent Rockets free-hits throughout the chase
