Allan Border Medal labelled ‘meaningless’ as award’s significance hits sad new low
It’s cricket’s equivalent of the Dally M Awards or Brownlow Medal night but many are questioning if it is even significant anymore.
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It’s cricket’s equivalent of the Dally M Awards or Brownlow Medal night, but for the first time in history, none of Australia’s men’s Test stars will be present when the Allan Border Medal winner is announced on Monday night.
The Australian Cricket Awards – where the Allan Border Medal and the Belinda Clarke Award are presented – always takes place in the vacant February window between the end of the Test summer and a tour overseas.
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This year, Travis Head is the strong favourite to be crowned the top Australian men’s cricketer, while fast bowler Pat Cummins is the other player in contention for the top gong.
Head is coming off a stellar 12 months across all three formats, with a staggering 1427 runs since the polling period began with the home Test series against West Indies last January, and ended with the recent Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
While Cummins was recently named captain of the ICC’s Test Team of the Year for picking up 37 wickets in nine Tests at an average of 24.02.
As well as that at the T20 World Cup last year, Cummins recorded hat-tricks in consecutive games - which until that point had never been done in 20 years of T20I cricket.
However, for the first time since the award was introduced in 2000, neither player nor in fact any member of the Australian Test squad, will attend the iconic cricket awards night due to the team currently touring Sri Lanka and Cummins nursing a newborn in Sydney.
This means the winner will have to virtually accept the award and it is the latest blow for cricket’s night of nights, with SEN’s Kane Cornes going as far as to say the award has become completely “meaningless”.
“It’s like having the Brownlow Medal and the top eight fancies are ineligible,” Cornes said on SEN on Tuesday.
“Even the rusted-on SEN lovers of cricket if you asked them ‘Hey list me off the last five AB medal winners I don’t reckon they could do that’.
“It is the most meaningless award. It just doesn’t mean anything.”
With the Aussie Test squad in Sri Lanka earlier than normal due to the 50-over Champions Trophy at the end of this month in Pakistan and then the Indian Premier League getting underway in March, Cricket Australia had little choice but to cop the lack of players present on the chin.
If Head wins the award on Monday night, he will accept the award remotely.
And while Cummins isn’t overseas with the rest of the Test team, he too won’t be at cricket’s prized award night, and will instead have to accept the award virtually from Sydney, with a newborn under his arm.
Why is the Allan Border medal being held when the Test side is overseas?
The Age reported in November that Cricket Australia held talks with the Australian Cricketers’ Association and broadcasters about moving the awards to earlier in the summer.
However, due to the female equivalent, Belinda Clark Award, also being announced on the same night, Cricket Australia felt it was best to leave it on February 4, after Australia’s Test series against England.
“The difference this time will be the fact that the men’s Test team will be over in Sri Lanka,”
Cricket Australia’s head of events Joel Morrison told The Age.
“That’s a reflection of the evolution of the global game and the increasing playing opportunities overseas while the awards are on.
“This is the first time where we literally haven’t been able to find a window where all players can be in the one location at the one time, without conflicting with a BBL game and still holding it in the thick of the cricket season as opposed to at the end of the season for club and state cricket in March.
“It’s the first time we haven’t been able to have the men’s Test team there, but we’ll have our Australian women’s team, WBBL and BBL players, and men’s white-ball players as well.”
How to watch the Australian Cricket Awards?
The Australian Cricket Awards will be held on Monday February 6 at Melbourne’s Crown Casino, with the awards broadcast live on Fox Cricket, via Foxtel and Kayo Sports, and will begin at 8pm (AEDT).
The Aussie women’s team will be in attendance – fresh off their Ashes series demolition of England – while members of the men’s Test team will remain in Galle.
Which awards will be handed out?
– Allan Border Medal
– Belinda Clark Award
– Shane Warne Test Player of the Year
– Men’s ODI Player of the Year
– Women’s ODI Player of the Year
– Men’s T20I Player of the Year
– Women’s T20I Player of the Year
– Men’s Domestic Cricketer of the Year
– Women’s Domestic Cricketer of the Year
– Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year
– Betty Wilson Young Cricketer of the Year
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Originally published as Allan Border Medal labelled ‘meaningless’ as award’s significance hits sad new low
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