Love him or hate him, Warner deserved top award

I think those criticising have either no idea of the voting system or still hold a grudge.

THE Allan Border Medal was held during the week with several male and female players winning different awards.

Queenslander Marnus Labuschagne picked up the Test Player of the Year with some awesome batting feats over the past 12 months.

Aaron Finch clinched the One Day Award and David Warner the T20 crown.

The best female player in the world Ellyse Perry won the Major Female Award on the night, collecting the Belinda Clarke Medal for the third time. No-one could argue with this decision as she has dominated with bat and ball.

The big award on the night - the Allan Border Medal - was awarded to David Warner after having a massive 12 months in all three forms of the game. This seemed to be the wrong decision by several who jumped on Facebook as soon as it was announced to voice their displeasure in a disappointing manner.

I think those criticising have either no idea of the voting system or still hold a grudge about the ball tampering incident.

Let's delve into his past 12 months and see if he deserved it.

The start to the year was a terrible time for Warner with a Ashes series he would rather forget.

In the next two Test series against Pakistan and the second rated team in the world in New Zealand his form was excellent.

In the ODI and T20 formats, Warner again was at his brilliant best.

You add all this together and you get the award winner.

Remember that its 12 months worth of cricket, not just the summer we have just gone through.

You might hate Warner as a person but you cannot deny he is a champion cricketer, and more to the point he is our Australian opening batsman who performs more than he fails.

Record feat

WHEN I was growing up, I had many idols in the athletics world from the brilliant sprinter/long jumper Carl Lewis to the long distance king in Haile Gebrselassie.

Another champion I loved to watch was the man who rewrote how pole vault should be done. Sergey Bubka broke the world record in 1984 with a 5.94m leap.

Over the next 10 years, he would break it again another 13 times reaching a height of 6.14m. That was a record that would stand for the next 20 years until broken by Frenchmen Donetsk Ukraine who increased it by 2cm to 6.16m.

The record has been broken again by 20 year old Swede Armand Duplantis who climbed over a height of 6.17m.

At a young age, he will surely increase this mark.

Quick thoughts

HEROES: 1. The Australian women's cricket team won the International Tri Series final against India. They will go into the upcoming T20 World Cup with great confidence.

2. Bangladesh Under 19 cricket team. What a great result for cricket worldwide with the team winning the World Cup recently by defeating India.

Villains: 1. AFL - surely you are not considering changing the competition name to

AFLM to identify it as a men's game. If it is not broken then leave it

alone.

2. Australian Rugby Union. Not only did the ARU mess the broadcast deal

up but the Australian sides have underperformed on the playing field by only

winning two out of the first eight games played so far. Improvement is needed.

Sporting birthdays: 1914 - Norman Von Nida (champion Australian golfer). 1977: Cadel Evans (champion Australian cyclist).

On this day: 1951 - Sugar Ray Robinson defeats Jake LaMotta to win the Middleweight title.

1984: Britain's Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean wow the judges

achieving nine out nine perfect scores for artistic impression at the Sarajevo

Olympics.

1992: Kieren Perkins smashes 800m freestyle world record clocking 7.46.60.

Bomber's best: I gave the Kiss of Death to the Brisbane Bullets last week by tipping

them after some great previous form.

This week, the Nines tournament is taking place in Perth and I like the look of the Eels or Broncos to win the series.

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