Head to Head

GH almost misses the AB Medal

Back from personal leave

Travis Head has again won the considerably-reduced, greatly-overshadowed and much-delayed Allan Border Medal at what even cricket.com.au has described as ‘a low-key event overlooking the Brisbane River that was not broadcast’, so who knows what it was? A barbecue? Charades? Karaoke? Actually, to I’d have tuned in. Anyway, the footage makes Yarras presentation night look like the acme of glamour….

Last year, Head was gonged at a team hotel in Galle. For much of this year, he has been on personal leave either side of a spell in the Indian Premier League, and the team otherwise scattered, challenging the hard-pressed organisers to find an ideal date. Credit to them, they finally did, even if it non-plussed the great man whose name the medal bears. As he told Dan Cherny this week, the would ‘like to see it go back to a traditional time and a traditional sort of ceremony’ as ‘it does seem a bit odd to be in the middle of winter when there’s been no cricket really played.’ But if it does, it won’t be next year, given Australia’s tour of India.

Head, it was noted, has joined Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke, Shane Watson and David Warner in topping the AB Medal in consecutive years. But the votes, cast by peers, match officials and media, had a noteworthy second-place getter.

Travis Head 153 votes
Alex Carey 152 votes
Mitchell Starc 150 votes
Steve Smith 96 votes
Mitchell Marsh 86 votes

Where a year ago Head veritably streeted the award, this time he pipped his old mucka Alex Carey by a single vote. Which was a shame. Since it was minted twenty-seven years ago, no wicketkeeper has won the Allan Border Medal - keepers are, of course, eternally disadvantaged by their role, where excellence is often inconspicuous. But were it ever justified, 2025-26 was the season - not since the palmy days of Adam Gilchrist has a gloveman so impacted international cricket. Only Head scored more runs for his team, while Carey’s quicksilver glovework standing up to Scott Boland and Michael Neser during the Ashes lifted standards worldwide.

Break free

The inspiration Carey provided New Zealand’s Tom Blundell and West Indies’s Shai Hope, for instance, has been obvious since. Did you see Hope stumping Kamindu Mendis down the leg side off Justin Greaves in North Sound ? Perhaps not - it was that quick. Never take this for granted: watching Jamie Smith and James Rew try the same in England this season has demonstrated the degree of difficulty involved. Carey turns thirty-five in three weeks on the birthday he shared with Don Bradman; the coincidence no longer seems so flattering.