Quantcast

Contenders shape up for 2021 Australian Cricket Awards

It's an open race for the Belinda Clark Award and Allan Border Medal this year with new faces in the mix to take out the top awards that will be presented in a televised ceremony

The effects of the global health pandemic on the international cricket calendar have made the race for this year's Australian Cricket Awards wide open.

In a sign of the times, this year's awards are not being presented at the usual annual black-tie gala event due to biosecurity protocols and logistical challenges in the current climate.

Instead, the major awards – culminating in the presentation of the Belinda Clark Award and the Allan Border Medal – will be announced during a televised show on both the Seven Network and Foxtel ahead of Saturday's KFC BBL|10 Final.

This year's Belinda Clark Award looms as a closely-contested race, which seems likely to produce a first-time winner.

Opening batter Beth Mooney shapes as the frontrunner following a year that saw her crowned the Player of the Tournament at the ICC T20 World Cup, while vice-captain Rachael Haynes, pace bowler Megan Schutt and left-arm spinner Jess Jonassen are among the other top contenders to win the coveted medal for the first time.

Mooney scored more runs than any of her teammates across three ODIs and 14 T20Is during the voting period, compiling 555 runs at an average of 42.9, including six fifties.

She was followed by Haynes, whose 456 runs came t 35.07, while Jonassen and Schutt were Australia's leading wicket takers of the last 12 months, collecting 27 apiece.

Previous winners Meg Lanning and Alyssa Healy should also poll well, given their multiple match-winning performances that would likely have reaped the maximum votes.

Flashback: Aussies create history with home T20 World Cup win

Lanning hit an ODI century against New Zealand and played two match-winning hands against Sri Lanka and South Africa during the T20 World Cup – scoring a total of 442 runs at 49.11 – and Healy, while at times inconsistent, was named the Player of the World Cup Final and hit four half-centuries.

Among the national men's team, Marnus Labuschagne's emergence as a multi-format player could see him win the coveted top individual honour.

But with Test cricket heavily curtailed during the COVID-19 crisis, Australia still managed to play a handful of white-ball series that could see a surprise contender emerge, such as national limited-overs captain Aaron Finch, or leg-spinner Adam Zampa.

Voting in the Allan Border Medal is weighted towards performances in Test cricket to reflect the primacy of the long-form game, but with only the recently concluded India series to count, the chance for a white-ball star to claim the top gong has never been greater.

Best of the Border-Gavaskar: Every Pat Cummins wicket

Australia's multi-format stars will of course feature prominently in the voting, with Steve Smith and Pat Cummins the leading candidates, but both missed stretches of matches during a most unusual year, such as when Smith sat out the entire ODI series in England last September with a concussion.

With just the four Tests against India played in the voting period this year, and only the one victory for Australia out of that, Cummins – who claimed 21 wickets in the series – and Josh Hazlewood could lay claim to being frontrunners for the Test player of the year award. Australia's batters struggled, but Smith and Labuschagne both struck centuries, with the Queenslander the team's leading run-scorer with 426 at 53.25, out in front of Smith's 313 at 44.71.

Australia's men did manage to play 13 ODIs and 9 T20s in the voting period that runs from 9 January 2020 to 19 January 2021 – including a handful abroad in India and South Africa before the pandemic arrived and cut short a series against New Zealand.

Ashton Agar was sensational on last February's tour of South Africa, where he claimed a T20 hat-trick as part of a five-wicket haul in a match at the Wanderers. He collected 13 wickets at 12.46 and an economy of 6.75 from six matches to be a front-runner for the men's T20 player of the year award.

Ashton Agar's stunning hat-trick against South Africa

David Warner was also excellent in the South Africa T20s, with two fifties, but his chances to poll votes were curtailed when he missed the three T20s against India at home with the groin injury that also kept him out of the first two Test matches.

Smith (217 runs at 131.51) and Zampa (11 wickets at 23.27 and an economy of 7.91) were the only two to play in all nine of Australia's T20s. Finch was the country's top run scorer in the format with 271 at 33.87 and a strike rate of 138.97.

In one-day cricket, Finch and Warner both hit centuries in a brilliant win in Mumbai in January 2020, but the team would lose its next five matches, including all three in South Africa where Labuschagne broke through for his first century in the format.

Against the world champion England outfit, twin centuries for Glenn Maxwell and Alex Carey carried Australia to a 2-1 series win, while Zampa picked up 10 wickets in the series.

Maxi and Kez! Record Aussie fightback floors England

Across the 13 ODIs played, Zampa had 27 wickets – 11 more than the next Australian – at 23.74 and an economy of an even five runs per over.

Even with missing all three matches in England, Smith scored 568 runs at 63.11 with centuries in Bengaluru and twice at the SCG within three days, as well as a knock of 98 in Rajkot.

The Women's T20I Player of the Year will also be recognised following a 12-month period that saw Australia claim their fifth T20 World Cup title in front of 86,174 people at the MCG on March 8 of last year.

Australia played 14 T20Is in total across the voting period, which took in a tri-series against England and India, and a three-game series against New Zealand, in addition to the ICC tournament.

Mooney, with her 504 runs at 45.81 with a strike rate of 122.92, is a strong favourite for the award, while Schutt (22 wickets at 15.72) and Jonassen (19 wicket at 15) should also poll well.

Mooney posts record score in T20 World Cup final

With just three ODIs played across the voting period, leading run scorers Haynes (222 runs at 74) and Lanning (163 runs without being dismissed), leading wicket taker Jonassen (8 wickets at 10.12) loom as the favourites for the Female One-Day Cricketer of the Year Award.

Cricket Australia has already announced Hall of Fame inductions for Merv Hughes and Lisa Sthalekar this week, while Indigenous pioneer Johnny Mullagh was inducted last December.

Today, the player-voted men's and women's domestic players of the year, and the rising star awards were announced ahead of tomorrow night's major awards.