Women to party, men phone it in at cricket awards

Whoever wins the Allan Border Medal, they will be accepting the award via video link.

Travis Head is the strong favourite to be crowned the top Australian men’s cricketer for the first time during the awards ceremony at Melbourne’s Crown Palladium on Monday night.

Stand-in Australia captain Steve Smith has tipped Head, the leading runscorer in the Border-Gavaskar trophy triumph, to win the Allan Border Medal.

“I’m going to go Travis Head, he’s had a pretty good year in all formats. That’s my tip,” Smith said after Australia’s crushing win against Sri Lanka.

During the voting period that started with Australia’s home Test series against West Indies in January 2024, the left-handed dynamo notched up 1427 international runs across all formats.

But due to a quirk of the scheduling, all of Australia’s top men’s cricketers will still be in Sri Lanka and won’t be in the room in Melbourne.

Captain Pat Cummins is realistically Head’s only real threat for the medal, having performed strongly in the disappointing T20 World Cup campaign, before starring in the five-Test series against India.

If Cummins wins his second Allan Border Medal, then he could be accepting the award from Sydney with a newborn baby on his lap.

Cummins has missed the tour of Sri Lanka due to the impending birth of his second child.

He first won the medal back in 2019, with axed Test allrounder Mitch Marsh claiming an emotional and unexpected victory last year.

Marsh, who has been ruled out of the Champions Trophy due to an ongoing back issue, gave an instantly-iconic acceptance speech that gave extra importance to the awards night.

While only men’s white-ball players will be in attendance, the all-conquering women’s side will be celebrated in person after completing a historic Ashes whitewash of England.

Australia won all seven games of the series, culminating in a ruthless innings and 122-run thumping of their rivals in the day-night Test at the MCG.

Allrounder Ashleigh Gardner will be in strong contention to win back-to-back Belinda Clark Awards to give her a third victory in four years.

But Test superstar Annabel Sutherland and consistent all-format gun Beth Mooney will also be vying for the honour.

Spin star Alana King was crowned player of the Ashes after bamboozling England with a record-equalling 23 wickets, but her lack of T20 matches will likely her cost a shot at winning the award for the first time.