John Knox, the long-serving chair of Cricket New South Wales, has joined the board of Trent Rockets, nudging the Hundred’s investment jigsaw to within one final piece of completion.
Knox arrives through Ares Management, the private-equity firm that, alongside Cain International, paid roughly £40 million earlier this year for a 49 per-cent stake in the Rockets. The paperwork was finally signed off late last week, making Nottingham the seventh franchise to lock in its joint-venture agreement.
Only Oval Invincibles remain in limbo. Surrey and Reliance – owners of Mumbai Indians – have been haggling over the finer details for months, and lawyers on both continents have slowed things to a crawl. People close to the deal still insist they are “days not weeks” from signing.
The England and Wales Cricket Board originally pencilled in an eight-week exclusivity window back in February. That timetable, rather optimistically, assumed lawyers might work at T20 speed; in reality they have trundled along at something closer to a four-day over rate.
Who is Knox?
Away from the boardroom, Knox runs Ares’ Australia / New Zealand arm. He has chaired Cricket NSW since 2018, helped usher Earl Eddings out as Cricket Australia chair in 2021 and championed gender-diversity targets for his own board last year. None of those roles, his camp says, overlap with his new position in Nottingham.
Earlier this year he told the Australian Financial Review that cricket is his “life’s passion” and that T20 represents a “tremendous… growth opportunity”. Those comments will resonate with Cricket Australia, currently weighing up whether to seek external money for the Big Bash.
Rockets’ new look
Knox will sit alongside Jonathan Goldstein and Joe Stelzer – Cain’s chief executive and senior managing director respectively – as the investors’ three directors. Nottinghamshire supply the other four seats, among them director of cricket Mick Newell, who doubles as general manager of the Rockets.
The first agenda item is obvious: finding a new men’s coach. Andy Flower, in charge since the Hundred kicked off, has just accepted a long-term deal at London Spirit. Replacements are being discussed; no one has yet been offered the job.
Money in the bank
Overall, the sale of 49-per-cent stakes across the eight franchises has brought in a shade over £500 million. That cash is being split between the counties and the ECB, and is already easing long-standing financial headaches. Gloucestershire, for example, announced last week they had cleared all debt after “more than 20 years” of borrowing, which treasurer Nick Bryan called a “seminal moment” for the club.
Context, not confetti
Private ownership still sparks debate. Traditionalists worry about asset-stripping; reformers prefer to talk up fresh capital, governance expertise and wider global reach. The truth, as usual, sits somewhere between. For now, most county boards seem relieved to have cheques in the bank and questions about survival off the table.
Once the Invincibles sign, attention will turn back to the pitch – player retentions, overseas drafts and the fixture list. Knox, a regular visitor to Lord’s each northern summer, will soon discover that running a Hundred side is no easy sprint, even if – by franchise standards – seven down with one to go feels like the slog overs at last.
