Sad reality as cricket’s night of nights vanishes from relevance

Australian cricket’s most prestigious award, the Allan Border Medal, will be handed out on Friday night - and if you had no idea it was coming, you’re not alone.

What once was an awards ceremony on par with the Brownlow Medal and the Dally M Awards, will now be presented on Friday night at a quiet team event in Brisbane, without any of the fanfare that accompanied it when it was held at the Crown Palladium ballroom in Melbourne.

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The medal historically is given out in January or February as a celebration to cap off the home summer of cricket. Now, in August, mainstream interest is likely as low as it will get. You’d be hard-pressed to find much promotion for it.

It’s the second straight year the award has lacked prestige and ceremony, after Travis Head was handed the 2025 Allan Border Medal while in a hotel room in Galle during a tour with the Test team.

The new format stems from the difficulty in finding a night in the calendar where both the men’s and women’s teams are available to attend and enjoy proceedings.

The Women’s Premier League, which now takes place across January and February, largely removes that window as a possibility. This year’s Belinda Clark Medal was awarded in the middle of February in a similarly low-key event.

Unlike 2025, Border will be in attendance in Brisbane to award the medal on Friday night.

However, he hopes the timeslot issue can be resolved, and the night can return to the prestige it once held.

“I sort of understand because there’s been so much cricket when it was traditionally held…it just couldn’t happen at the time,” Border told News Corp on Friday.

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“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.

“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 it to see it to 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.”

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Head is the favourite to go back-to-back, given his work across all three formats.

He led the Aussies for runs scored in both Test and ODI cricket across the last year.

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