Aussie cricket fans have called for immediate action after the Australian men’s player of the year was announced in a Brisbane function room rather than the usual gala extravaganza fitting of cricket’s night of nights.
Allan Border, 71, presented the medal named in his honour to Travis Head ahead of the Aussie squad’s departure for Darwin on Friday night.
Head’s back-to-back AB medals see him join an elite group of Aussie cricketers to have won the honour multiple times. Only Ricky Ponting, Michael Clarke, Shane Watson, Steve Smith and David Warner have won the prestigious award more than once.
However, the awards night has sadly been downgraded from a black-tie gala to an event that more closely resembles a club cricket awards night than cricket’s equivalent of the Dally Ms and Brownlow Medal.
While Border was dressed to the nines, Head turned up in casual clothes more befitting a team dinner than an awards night.
Last year, Head had to receive the award virtually as he was in Sri Lanka. This year at least he was able to collect it in person from Border himself.
Yet fans felt the ceremony had diminished the award’s value as vision shared to social media showed it was a far cry from what people would expect from cricket’s night of nights.
“The Allan Border Medal going from a Brownlow-type gala event to being handed out in early August is really sad. While it is tough to find a spot in the crowded cricket calendar, considering who it is named after, it does deserve to be treated with a bit more respect,” Alex Fair wrote on X.
“What a joke there isn’t a proper event on. Embarrassing,” Reginal Ryder added.
“Is this done at the local bowlo now? What happened to the black tie event? The AB Medal and all awards should be a prestigious event,” another commented on a video shared of Head receiving the award.
“How pathetically low-key. It is the top personal award for Australian cricket and should be at a presentation worthy of the honour,” Geoffrey Hodge said.
It comes after Border himself urged for his eponymous medal to be again awarded at a gala ceremony from next year as the medal’s prestige continues to diminish through no fault of his own.
The awards night has always taken place in February, in a gap between the end of the Test summer and a tour overseas.
But that slot is no longer available, with the Women’s Premier League – the female equivalent of the IPL – shifting into the January-February slot and the Aussie men abroad for the T20 World Cup.
But Border has urged for that to change moving forward, while acknowledging the scheduling difficulties.
“It does seem a bit odd to be in the middle of winter, and there’s been no cricket really played, and everyone’s sort of forgotten about who’s done what. Trying to pick the winner will be a bit harder than normal,” Border told Code Sports this week.
“But yeah, look, it is what it is. I think the players still rate the fact that it’s a great honour for them to win that medal. So whenever it’s held, it’s highly regarded by the players, and that’s important.
“But I’d like to see it go back to a traditional time and traditional sort of ceremony, where the girls are there.
“It’s a big event down at the Crown Casino at the end of the season, have the big awards night, and then they get on with the winter programs.”
The AB Medal was instituted at the turn of the century, and the awards event was seen as cricket’s night of nights, rivalling the AFL’s Brownlow Medal ceremony and the NRL’s Dally M Awards.
However, now the prestige has been diminished by the fact it is handed out seemingly wherever it can be squeezed into the calendar, whether or not the players are in the country.
It had SEN’s Kane Cornes going as far as to say the award has become completely “meaningless”.
“It’s like having the Brownlow Medal and the top eight fancies are ineligible,” Cornes said on SEN last year.
“Even the rusted-on SEN lovers of cricket, if you asked them ‘Hey list me off the last five AB medal winners’, I don’t reckon they could do that. “It is the most meaningless award. It just doesn’t mean anything.”
Originally published as ‘Embarrassing’: Cricket fans call for change after sad scenes during Allan Border Medal awards night