Marsh beats front-runner Cummins

Australian allrounder Mitch Marsh romped to his maiden Allan Border medal with 233 votes, 79 ahead of Pat Cummins.

The 2024 Australian Cricket Awards event held at Melbourne's Crown Casino today, where an unexpected but a landslide victory came in favour of popular Marsh. 

Marsh is the first allrounder to take out the award in more than a decade, with Shane Watson the last to do it in 2011.

The stunning return to the Baggy Green was the major factor for Marsh, a powerhouse top-order batter and handy bowler in the white-ball cricket, in landing the most prestigious individual prize in Australian men's cricket, according to Cricket.com-au report. 

A decision to have keyhole surgery on his left ankle in January 2023 with an eye towards making the mid-year Ashes tour paid off in spades. Recalled to the XI in the third Test which Cameron Green missed with an injury, he scored a rollicking 118 while providing a handful with the ball, and hasn't looked back.

He passed fifty in half of his next 10 Test innings, including scores of 90 and 96 during the home summer against Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Ashleigh Gardner has underlined her standing as one of the world's best allrounders with a second Belinda Clark Award, adding to the one she claimed in 2022.

The other winners are: Nathan Lyon (Shane Warne Men's Test Player of the Year), Ellyse Perry (Women's T20I Player of the Year), Ellyse Perry (Women's ODI Player of the Year), Mitch Marsh (Men's ODI Player of the Year), Jason Behrendorff (Men's T20I Player of the Year), Elyse Villani and Sophie Day (Women's Domestic Players of the Year), Cameron Bancroft (Men's Domestic Player of the Year), Fergus O'Neill (Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year), Emma de Broughe (Betty Wilson Young Cricketer of the Year).