Preview: 2017 Allan Border Medal

Australia’s wildly fluctuating fortunes across three formats and eight nations over the past year will be reflected in a tightly run Crown Lager Allan Border Medal count that could deliver any one of three winners.

David Warner is the mild favourite to pocket his second consecutive Border Medal at the annual event to be held at The Star Sydney next Monday, largely due to his imperious ODI form of the past six months.

But he faces a strong challenge from his captain Steve Smith who is one of the few players likely to poll well in the Test, ODI and T20 formats, and fast bowler Mitchell Starc whose Test performances will count heavily in his favour under the weighted voting system.

To ensure players who are considered red-ball specialists are not significantly disadvantaged, votes cast for Test performances are worth double those polled for ODIs and three-times more than the T20 International equivalents.

And despite Australia’s indifferent Test form during the voting period from 8 January 2016 to 7 January this year, where from 11 matches Smith’s team lost five on the trot to Sri Lanka and South Africa, Starc was a stand-out performer.

Even though he missed the first two Tests of the voting period (in New Zealand) due to injury, he finished as Australia’s leading wicket taker with 52 at an average of 24.29.

Smith was comfortably Australia’s leading Test runs scorer over that time with 1162 at 68.35 including four centuries, but his team’s repeated failures with the bat in Sri Lanka and against South Africa at the start of this summer will likely impact on his final votes tally as bowlers were left to take up the heavy lifting.

By contrast Warner, the reigning Test Player of the Year who averaged less than 40 with the bat in the premier format this year, seems set to record maximum votes in seven or eight of the 23 ODIs he played.

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During which he plundered a remarkable seven centuries and averaged 63.09 while maintaining a strike rate of 105 per 100 balls faced, and led Australia to series wins in ODIs and T20 Internationals in Sri Lanka after Smith returned home early.

That record almost guarantees Warner will succeed Glenn Maxwell as One-Day Player of the Year, and narrowly edge out Smith and Starc for Australian cricket’s most prestigious individual honour.

Maxwell is likely to earn the T20 Player of the Year award, which he last received in 2015 and remains the holder given it was not presented last year due to a paucity of 20-over matches for the national team.

Even though Australia won just half of their 12 T20I encounters over the past year and failed to reach the play-off phase of the World T20 won by the West Indies, Maxwell was by far the leading runs scorer in the format.

Largely due to the unbeaten 145 he blasted from 65 balls against Sri Lanka at Pallekele last September when elevated to open the innings alongside Warner.

But he could be challenged for the honour by veteran allrounder Shane Watson who was a solid performer with bat and ball, and opener Aaron Finch who was replaced by Smith as T20 captain in the lead-up to the World T20.

South Australia captain Travis Head looms as front runner for the Men’s Domestic Player Award, having earned his national limited-overs cap and led the West End Redbacks to their first Sheffield Shield Final in 20 years during that time.

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He was also the second-highest runs scorer across all formats during the voting period behind 2014 winner Cameron White from Victoria.

Western Australia allrounder Hilton Cartwright is favoured to take out the prestigious Bradman Young Player of the Year honour, with his dual return of 926 runs at 44.10 and 17 wickets at 38.71 resulting in a Test debut against Pakistan at the SCG earlier this month.

The Belinda Clark Award for Australia’s foremost women’s player of the voting period – for ODIs and T20 Internationals as there were no Test matches played during that time - is expected to be won by allrounder Ellyse Perry for the second consecutive year.

Perry’s outstanding form with the bat in the latter half of the year, that saw her finish the 12-month span with a remarkable 11 half centuries and an average in excess of 60 as well as being her country’s leading wicket-taker with 30 at 23.07, is likely to have her finish ahead of Meg Lanning, her Southern Stars captain.

Lanning seems set to be win the inaugural Women’s Domestic Player Award having averaged more than 70 with the bat in the Women’s National Cricket League and Rebel Women’s BBL competitions in the period from 5 December 2015 to 4 December last year.

Although she might face strong competition from bowlers Rene Farrell (35 wickets at 14.17) and Molly Strano (31 at 16.48) who both enjoyed stellar seasons.

And the maiden winner of the Betty Wilson Young Women’s Cricketer of the Year is expected to be exciting 19-year-old New South Wales batter Ashleigh Gardner, who in 2015 became the first woman to be named Lord’s Taverners Indigenous Player of the Year.

Gardner, who is also a handy off-spin bowler, has starred with the bat for the Sydney Sixers during the current Rebel WBBL campaign and was named in the Southern Stars squad after scoring a century against Sri Lanka for the Shooting Stars last year.

Possible winners:

Allan Border Medal: David Warner

Belinda Clark Award: Ellyse Perry

Test Player of the Year: Mitchell Starc

ODI Player of the Year: David Warner

T20 International Player of the Year: Glenn Maxwell

Men’s Domestic Player Award: Travis Head

Women’s Domestic Player Award: Meg Lanning

Bradman Young Men’s Cricketer of the Year: Hilton Cartwright

Betty Wilson Young Cricketer of the Year: Ashleigh Gardner