Head sneaks home to claim second straight Allan Border Medal

Travis Head has become the fifth player to win consecutive Allan Border Medals as the star batter edged out his close friend Alex Carey after a neck-and-neck count.

Eight months after the voting period concluded, Head was presented his second straight AB Medal by the former Australia captain himself at an event in Brisbane on Friday evening.

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Mitchell Starc received the Shane Warne Men's Test Player of the Year award from the late spinner's father Keith, with Mitchell Marsh (ODI) and Tim David (T20I) the other award winners at a low-key event overlooking the Brisbane River that was not broadcast.

The belated ceremony to acknowledge the men's team's top performers in 2025 (the voting period ran from 29 January 2025 – 8 January 2026) came after Cricket Australia had been unable to find a summer window to host the awards due to the overlapping schedules of the two national teams.

Annabel Sutherland was presented with the Belinda Clark Medal ahead of a training session at the SCG in February with no formal Australian Cricket Awards night held during the '25-26 season.

Last year, Head had been a runaway winner of the AB Medal and came within a handful of votes of sweeping all the individual format awards too. This time he only narrowly clinched the prize based off player, umpire and media votes.

It seems certain he jumped fellow South Australian Carey (whom he topped by a single vote) and champion fast bowler Starc (by three votes) during a pivotal final game of the voting period, the New Year's Test.

At the SCG, Head pummelled 163 in what was his third hundred of an Ashes series in which he made an unexpected transition to the opening position. Although the vote logs from individual games not revealed, he would surely have polled full votes in the summer finale ahead of Australia's other standouts in Sydney, Steve Smith (who made 138), Beau Webster (71no and three wickets), Starc and Michael Neser (five wickets apiece for the match).

Overall, Head distinguished himself from his AB Medal challengers Carey, Starc and Smith, who were all equally strong contributors to Australia's red-ball success through 2025, by finishing the voting period as not only the leading Test run scorer, but also the ODI side's most prolific batter.

His rapid 142 against South Africa in an August 50-over match in Mackay marked a fourth ton in 2025-26. His other standout efforts were the stunning fourth-innings 123 to end the Perth Test late on day two and then the 170 he struck in Adelaide to help clinch the urn for Australia.

Head joins teammates Smith (who won four AB Medals between 2015 and 2023) and Nathan Lyon (2019 and 2024) in winning the AB Medal multiple times. Ricky Ponting (2004, '06, '07, '09), Michael Clarke (2005, '09, '12, '13), David Warner (2016, '17, '20) and Shane Watson (2010, '11) are the others to win back-to-back medals.

"(I felt) very privileged and honoured to have 'AB' (Border) in the room; that's the difference (from last year's presentation in Sri Lanka), is having him there to present it," Head said afterwards.

"To think that I've got two medals and my kids can look at them and I can tell them (about it) in 20 years' time is pretty cool.

"To have both India and England series in there (for both medals) is cool.

"To win an Ashes series is incredible and to have an opportunity to maybe win the Border-Gavaskar Trophy away, to win an Ashes away and to win (an ODI) World Cup away in South Africa later next year, that's all I'm solely worried about.

"First, we've got to play really well against Bangladesh next week, we got a huge opportunity against South Africa, and then we play in New Zealand who are playing exceptionally good cricket.

"Our work is going to be cut out. I'm just pleased to be playing well, and let's hope it continues."

Starc's remarkable potency and durability through Australia's 11 Tests meanwhile, most notably his devastating 6-9 with a pink Dukes ball in Jamaica and then his 31 Ashes wickets, was recognised as he picked up his second Test player of the year award.

It comes nine years after he first won that award – the longest ever gap between a player winning individual format awards.

The left-armer finished with 57 Test wickets at 18.12 during the voting period, more than double the next highest tally (Lyon's 28 scalps at 25.53), and made it the third consecutive year a bowler has taken out the award (Lyon in 2024, Josh Hazlewood in 2025).

In the T20I arena, David's red-hot touch in Australia's strong run of bilateral series results (the T20 World Cup was played after the voting period ended) won him a maiden gong.

Promoted to No.4 and 5, the right-hander averaged 49.37 with a strike-rate of 197.50 to be a clear standout even with Marsh also having a strong year with the bat (454 runs at 37.83, striking at 158).

Internationally, no one playing for a full member side who batted more than five times in T20Is during the voting period scored faster than David, whose 37-ball ton against West Indies in St Kitts marked his first century in Aussie colours.

The power hitter also shaded the efforts of Australia's star white-ball bowlers Nathan Ellis and Adam Zampa, who took 18 and 17 wickets respectively in the voting period.

Marsh took out the ODI award for a second time in three years despite playing only six of the 10 eligible matches. After missing the Champions Trophy in February '25 with a back issue, he returned as captain for bilateral home series against South Africa and India, averaging more than 60.

After battering 88 and 100 against the Proteas in northern Queensland in August, he effectively sealed the award when he spearheaded Australia's run-chase with a 52-ball 46 in Perth in a rain-reduced ODI against India in October.