Australian Cricket Awards: Pat Cummins wins Allan Border Medal; Nathan Lyon bags Test player of the Year

Pat Cummins joined a prestigious club of former Allan Border Medal winners including Steve Waugh, Glenn McGrath, Matthew Hayden, Adam Gilchrist, Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke, Shane Watson, Steve Smith and David Warner. 

At 25 years and 279 days, he is also the youngest Border Medallist since Smith won the first of his two awards in 2015 when aged 25 years and 239 days.

(Image: AFP)

Nathan Lyon polled a combined total of 25 votes from the jury ahead of fast bowler Pat Cummins, batsman Usman Khawaja, wicketkeeper batsman Tim Paine and batsman Mitchell Marsh to win the Test Player of the Year.

Lyon emerged three votes clear of Cummins with Khawaja (17), Paine (nine) and Mitchell Marsh (eight) making up the top five during the ceremony in Melbourne. Lyon becomes just the second specialist bowler to be crowned best men’s Test player in the past decade, with Mitchell Starc having taken the honour in 2017. 

(Image: Reuters)

Marcus Stoinis was one of the few consistent performers for Australia in ODI cricket. He played 13 matches this year and polled 30 votes to win ahead of Aaron Finch (22 votes), Shaun Marsh 18, Travis Head (14) and bowlers Billy Stanlake and Andrew Tye who each earned nine votes.

Stoinis was the third highest run-scorer with 376 runs, with four fifties and a top score of 87. His average was 28.92 in a middle-order role but well below his career batting average of 42.47. With the ball, he took 13 wickets from as many matches, at an average of 36.77 with a best return of 3/16.

(Image: File Photo)

Glenn Maxwell won his T20I Australian Player of the Year Award. Maxwell, who previously won the award in 2015, becomes the third multiple winner of the men’s T20 player after Watson (2012, 2013 and 2017) and Finch (2014, 2018).

Maxwell garnered 33 votes to narrowly edge D’Arcy Short (30 votes) and AJ Tye (29 votes). Also appearing in the top five were Finch (19) and Billy Stanlake (18).

(Image: AFP)

Alyssa Healy took home three honours on the night for her exploits with the bat in ODIs and T20Is. The inaugural women’s ODI and women’s T20I player of the year went to Healy. She struck 329 runs at 54.83 in ODIs, while in 16 T20I innings Healy hit 578 runs at 41.29 – striking at a rate of 145.96. She also won the Belinda Clark Award for her remarkable year.

She picked up 13 votes, to finish ahead of opener Nicole Bolton (12) and allrounder Ashleigh Gardner (9).

(Image: WBBL)

Men's Domestic Player of the Year: Matthew Wade

Women’s Domestic Player of the Year: Heather Graham

Best Young Male Cricketer: Will Pucovski

Best Young Female Cricketer: Georgia Wareham

(Image: Twitter @BCCI)