It’s that time of year again. Allan Border Medal time. You can feel it in your bones. Time for glamour. Time for excitement. Time for relief that it’s not the Brownlow.
That’s right. No six-hour marathon. No executives wrestling with unpronounceable names. It’s a time to reminisce on the last 12 months of cricket, and bow to its shining lights.
It’s a time for questions. Who will be feted as the best of all? Will Ricky Ponting wear a diaphanous gown with ruched sleeves, or a Grace Kelly classic with a plunging back? How the hell does the voting work? Who got the 2 and the 1 in Hobart, when everyone but Warner was awful?
There are awards for the best Test, ODI, and Twenty20 players internationally, and for the best domestic player, young player, and female player. Then there’s the Border Medal itself, for the best performer across all formats.
Shane Watson, winner the last two years, is largely out of contention thanks to a dip with the bat and the loss of his home summer to injury.
So who’s going to step up?
In all honesty, we can’t pretend it’s going to be anyone other than Michael Clarke. Since taking the reins from Ponting after the last World Cup, Clarke has produced inspired captaincy and inspired performances.
Of course we all remember that innings in Sydney. But in 32 international matches besides, Clarke scored nearly 2000 runs, with six centuries and six half-centuries at an average of 65.53. He captained with ingenuity and intent, fielded well, and even chipped in a couple of crucial spells with the ball.
Ricky Ponting has been there and done that as far as awards go, with four AB Medals to go with three Test and two ODI awards. Despite being talked down all year, he’s still second on the run list, with three hundreds and eight fifties.
Extraordinarily though, Clarke finished 507 runs ahead of Ponting, nearly 600 ahead of Mike Hussey, and 832 ahead of Watson in fourth.
Nothing in the bowling could threaten Clarke’s claim on the medal, though there were some impressive performances. Mitchell Johnson might top the wicket list with 47 from 26 matches, but Peter Siddle took 40 from just nine.
Ben Hilfenhaus was similarly prolific, with 32 from five outings.
While Australia has exciting bowling prospects like James Pattinson, Patrick Cummins, Mitchell Starc, and Nathan Lyon, none played anywhere near as many matches as the main batsmen.
Only four of the top 13 wicket-takers played more than 10 games. The top seven run-scorers all played 20 or more.
Clarke is also the most obvious candidate for the Test award, given his triple-century, his Cape Town special, and his searing form since assuming the captaincy. As skipper he has averaged close to 64. Without the role his mark was under 47.
He outscored the second-placed Hussey by over 300 runs in the voting period, racking up five Test centuries with only one fifty (always a great sign), on his way to an average of 68.65.
Hussey was no slouch, with three hundreds and three fifties at 49.35, while Ponting had five fifties and those two summer centuries at 52.31.
It’s possible, though, that the Test Player prize will instead be reward for Siddle’s breakout year. Siddle didn’t play short-form cricket in this period, so the numbers quoted earlier are entirely Test statistics.
He bowled nearly 33 overs per Test, averaged about 4.5 wickets per match, and 23.35 runs per wicket. 40 wickets from nine Tests resulted. He also contributed with the bat – in a number of Tests Siddle was the most difficult to dislodge in the Australian team, and he played his part in several important partnerships.
It was also a breakout year for Australian seam bowling more generally. Four of the top ten Test wicket-takers – Cummins, Watson, Pattinson, and Hilfenhaus – averaged fewer than 20 runs per wicket, while seven of the ten enjoyed at least one five-wicket innings.
For fist-shakers, Trent Copeland had the best economy rate of any Australian wicket-taker, conceding 2.1 per over.
Interestingly, the front-runner for the One-Day Player of the Year could be the forgotten Johnson.
Johnson played more matches and bowled more overs than any Australian during the voting period, for effectively the lowest economy rate. Only Hilfenhaus, who played one match, conceded fewer runs per over, and only Hilfenhaus and Clint MacKay, who played four, had a better average.
Johnson’s figures of 36 wickets at 19.22, while conceding 4.26 an over, stack up against those of any great one-day bowler. He was also ninth on the batting list, with 135 from 11 innings, averaging 19.29.
Watson would be Johnson’s main challenger, topping the run-scoring with six fifties and that brutal 185 not out against a hapless Bangladesh, for a total of 833.
Clarke has only 34 fewer runs, and a yearly average of 61.46 to Watson’s 55.53. In the end, though, a strike rate of 78.87 to Watson’s 111.51 speaks in favour of the opener.
David Hussey impressed with an average of 51.25, despite no centuries and only three not-outs to Clarke’s six.
The younger Hussey brother might also line up for the Twenty20 award, after winning the inaugural prize last year. It’s a strange one, though, given Australia only played six matches, and no-one dominated.
Watson is again a contender, for his two half-centuries in three matches played, topping the run-scoring with a thumping strike rate of 165.28.
But Hussey could reap the rewards by virtue of having played all six games. He finished eight runs behind the all-rounder, and chipped in 10 overs of bowling at 6.3 with three wickets. He would also get credit for six matches of his peerless T20 fielding.
The Domestic Player of the Year clearly favours batsmen, with 10 of the last 12 awards going to top-order players. But not this year.
Certainly Rob Quiney had a boom summer, with 10 fifties and 6 hundreds in a season-high tally of 1640 runs across all forms. Marcus North finished 300 runs behind, bouncing back from his Test axing with four hundreds of his own, while George Bailey scored five.
But none of them will take the prize. Surely that will go to the exciting Tasmanian all-rounder James Faulkner, who dominated all three competitions with 71 wickets in all, at an average of 24.62.
He also came in 17th on the batting list, with 822 runs at 28.34.
It pays to remember, too, that rolling T20 figures into season numbers is rarely flattering, considering that batting averages of 30 and economy rates of 6 per over are thought impressive in the shortest format. On the other hand, it’s worth noting that it offers cheaper wickets.
Faulker would also be in the reckoning for the Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year award too, though a different voting period cuts his wicket tally to 58 and his runs to 749.
But realistically, it’s hard to see anyone going past David Warner, for an award he richly deserves.
A year ago, remember, Warner couldn’t get a first-class game for New South Wales. In the year since, he’s scored 1587 runs at an average of 69, and catapulted himself into the Test team.
That’s a mere 616 runs more than his nearest competitor, with four half-centuries and seven hundreds. 510 of his runs have come from six Tests, along with two of his centuries.
In the women’s game, Alex Blackwell and Leah Poulton had an identically impressive year with the bat, each scoring 464 runs from 19 matches across all forms. Sarah Coyte snared 27 wickets.
But the prize is likely to go to two-time winner Lisa Sthalekar, who topped the wicket-taking with 30 while coming in equal fourth on the runs list with 285. She may have been on the scene since the late 90s, but time has not dulled Sthalekar’s intent.
Of course, we can speculate all we like, but voting can be strange, and only time will tell the true answers. Roll on Monday night, to learn who will be honoured, who will be bridesmaids, and whether Ricky’s gown will match his eyes in evening blue.
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