For the second year in a row, Travis Head has won the Allan Border Medal in Australian cricket. He finished one vote ahead of Alex Carey and three ahead of Mitchell Starc. Before the team left for Darwin, Allan Border himself presented the prize at the ceremony, which took place in Brisbane.
Voting took place between January 29, 2025, and January 24, 2026. Tests have twice the weight of ODIs and three times the weight of T20Is, with votes cast by players, umpires, and the media on a 3-2-1 system every match.
After Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke, and Steven Smith, who each won the Allan Border Medal four times, David Warner, who won it three times, and Shane Watson, who won it twice, Travis Head is now the sixth player to win it more than once.
How did Travis Head present a convincing argument against Carey and Starc?
A strong Ashes series, in which he took over as Test opener following Usman Khawaja’s injury, served as the cornerstone of Travis Head campaign. With three hundreds—123 off 83 balls in Perth, 170 in Adelaide, and 163 at the SCG—he amassed 629 runs at a strike rate of 87.36 across the series. Head scored 971 runs in 11 Test matches during the voting period, almost 200 more than Carey, the next-highest scorer.
The foundation of Carey’s task was bat and glove consistency. He ended just behind Travis Head in the final score after scoring two Test hundreds during that time, 156 against Sri Lanka in Galle and 106 against England in Adelaide. Given the award’s weighting mechanism, Travis Head score of 142 in an ODI against South Africa in Mackay is thot to have helped to the one-vote margin.
What other honours were given out at the ceremony in Brisbane?
After taking 52 wickets at 17.80 during the voting period and placing third in the Allan Border Medal tally, Starc—who won Player of the Series in the Ashes—was named Shane Warne Test Player of the Year.
He led Australia attack against England that was devoid of Pat Cummins for all but one game and Josh Hazlewood for the duration, taking 31 wickets at a rate of 19.93. Additionally, Starc reached his 400th wicket in his 100th Test match as he grabbed 6 for 9 against the West Indies in Jamaica.
Mitchell Marsh, who made 304 runs at 60.80 in six games, was named ODI Player of the Year. With 395 runs at 49.37 and a strike rate of 197.50, Tim David won the T20I title. Annabel Sutherland won the Belinda Clark Award for the second year in a row.
Cricket Australia separated it from the main event earlier in 2026 because it was not possible to get all of the players together on a single date due to scheduling conflicts with international and franchise commitments.
