Daily Times

SYDNEY: Steven Smith and Beth Mooney took the top honours at the Cricket Australia awards while Usman Khawaja was named the inaugural Shane Warne Men’s Test Player of the Year. Smith claimed the Allan Border Medal for a record-equaling fourth time – joining Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke with that tally — while Mooney won the Belinda Clark medal for the second occasion having taken it in 2021 when the same pair of players claimed their respective medals. Across the three formats, Smith made 1547 runs in 32 matches with 863 coming in Tests at 71.92. Votes in Tests have a greater weighting than ODIs and T20Is. Smith polled 171 votes and finished comfortably ahead of Travis Head (144) and David Warner (141).

Mooney also took the ODI Player of the Year award and in that format made 594 runs at 99.00 in 13 matches. In T20Is she scored 449 runs at 56.12 and a strike-rate of 134.43 while last year’s Ashes Test, where Mooney made a half-century shortly after suffering a broken jaw, also came into the voting period. Mooney (129 votes) finished ahead of Meg Lanning (110) and Tahlia McGrath (95), the latter taking the T20I award after her outstanding return to international cricket.

For the first time, the men’s Test honour was named after Warne following his death last March. Having returned to the team in last year’s SCG Ashes Test with twin hundreds, Khawaja then scored 1020 runs at 78.46, including a career-best 195 not out, during the voting period. Khawaja’s off-field contributions also earned him recognition with the Community Impact Award for the Usman Khawaja Foundation which helps young people from disadvantaged communities by providing educational and cricketing opportunities.

The men’s white-ball honours went to Warner in ODIs, where Adam Zampa surprisingly did not make the top three, and Marcus Stoinis in T20Is. Matt Short, the Adelaide Strikers allrounder, was named BBL player of the tournament after a competition where he scored 458 runs, claimed 11 wickets and struck an unbeaten century. Ashleigh Gardner had been confirmed as the WBBL winner earlier in the season. Ian Redpath and Margaret Jennings were inducted into the Cricket Australia Hall of Fame.