In honour of the original 'finisher' who helped shape the modern game, the Michael Bevan Medal will be awarded to the player of the match in the One-Day Cup final
One-day legend endures with minting of Michael Bevan Medal
There are few higher accolades in professional sport than pioneering a mode of play that then becomes part of the game's enduring lexicon.
Michael Bevan can justly claim that credit by dint of his batting exploits in limited-overs cricket, feats that have been recognised by the minting of the Michael Bevan Medal for the player of the match in the One-Day Cup final, which will be awarded for the first time today.
Bevan was a finalist in this summer's quest to 'Name the Cup' that ultimately saw the prize for the One-Day Cup renamed the Dean Jones Trophy.
Across 232 One-Day Internationals for Australia and 77 appearances for New South Wales and Tasmania in the domestic 50-over competition, Bevan's capacity to calmly carry his team to victory – often amid dire circumstances – earned him the nickname 'The Finisher'.
It's a title that would subsequently be handed on to fellow stars of the global white-ball game – most notably India duo Mahendra Singh Dhoni and Virat Kohli – but Bevan can claim to have been the first grand master of the clinical run chase.
Among the many occasions Bevan somehow manufactured victory from beckoning defeat was the New Year's Day miracle against West Indies at the SCG in 1996 where Australia was 6-38 chasing 173 before his famous last-ball boundary to finish 78no.
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And the equally remarkable two-wicket win over New Zealand at the MCG in 2002 when Australia was in even more dire strife, 6-82 needing 246 at which point Bevan peeled off a chanceless century from 95 balls to once more break Kiwi hearts and hopes.
"I never really got nervous because there was nothing to lose," he once said in an interview with Fox Sports.
"I always felt nervous when we got close to the runs and we had something to lose (but) I wouldn’t have started feeling nervous about the entire thing until probably five, six, seven overs out (from the finish)."
His international ODI record remains extraordinary – 6912 runs at an average of 53.58 (strike rate 74.16) making him the only Australia batter (including those who batted just once in the 50-over format) to average more than 53.
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The only other internationals to have played more than 55 ODIs for superior averages are current stars Kohli (58.20) and Pakistan's Babar Azam (55.50).
But in some ways, Bevan's output in the domestic one-day arena was even more profound.
His 3243 runs came at an average of 61.19 per innings (strike rate 72.68), and in the competition's 55-year history no other batter to have played 10 or more innings has reached an average of 60.
And as was so often the case in Australia colours, Bevan produced his best in the most cut-throat circumstances.
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Not only did he play in more one-day cup grand finals (10) for more individual title wins (six) than any other men’s player, he holds the record for most runs scored in trophy deciders – 515 from 10 innings for NSW and Tasmania.
His average in those clutch encounters is a scarcely believable 103 with one century (135no against a star-studded Western Australia at the WACA Ground in 2001) and four fifties, plus five unbeaten knocks from his 10 times at bat.
Bevan's brilliance was built on an unflappable temperament when in the middle, and surgical-like precision in working out how he could find boundaries by taking minimal risk and manoeuvring the ball into gaps through enterprising stroke play.
He admitted his method was to memorise opposition field placings, divide the outfield into quadrants and change the angle of his bat face accordingly to try and find the fence.
"In the nets, he was a guy to admire: he would literally invent strokes to fuel his search for greatness and his desire to attain new levels of excellence," Steve Waugh wrote in his autobiography of his long-time Australia and NSW teammate.
That pairing of technique and temperament was cited by a number of fans who took part in cricket.com.au's Name the Domestic One Day Trophy online poll to Bevan's case.
"Michael Bevan has a brilliant record (both domestically and playing List A overseas)," one respondent (Martin Rocks) wrote.
"He was part of a dominant NSW team in the early '90s and also in the early '00s (where NSW won a hat-trick of tournaments in both these periods of time).
"(In ODIs) for a significant period of time he was our premier batsman, and an elite ground-fielder.
"He revolutionised middle to lower-order batting - no total was too big, and no situation was too dire.
"His ability to run between the wickets and nurture the lower order was second to none."
One-Day Cup standings 2024-25
| Team | M | W | L | T | N/R | NRR | Ded. | Bat | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1
SA
|
7 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0.25 | 0 | 3 | 21 |
|
2
VIC
|
7 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | -0.162 | 0 | 2 | 18 |
|
3
NSW
|
7 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0.099 | 0 | 2 | 16 |
|
4
QLD
|
7 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0.244 | 0 | 1 | 15 |
|
5
TAS
|
7 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0.134 | 0 | 1 | 15 |
|
6
WA
|
7 | 2 | 5 | 0 | 0 | -0.481 | 0 | 1 | 9 |
M: Matches played
W: Wins
L: Losses
T: Ties
N/R: No results
NRR: Net Run Rate
Ded.: Deductions
Bat: Batting Bonus
PTS: Total points