For the second time in as many years, the loveable larrikin has taken out the Allan Border Medal. Twelve months ago, it was Mitch Marsh; this time it is Travis Head who has won the biggest individual male prize in Australian cricket.
Five days after his latest act of attacking brilliance set up a Test win over Sri Lanka, Head was confirmed as the winner of his first AB Medal on Monday evening. None of Australia’s Test squad could attend the ceremony given it is sandwiched between their two Tests in Galle, leaving Head to make his acceptance speech via a video cross from the team hotel.
The left-hander was the runaway victor, earning 208 votes under the weighted system that gives more credence to performances in Tests compared to limited-overs matches.
That was 50 more than the runner-up, Josh Hazlewood (158 votes), with Pat Cummins (147), Steve Smith (105) and Mitchell Starc (87) rounding out the top five.
Top 10: 2025 Allan Border Medal
Player Votes
Travis Head 208
Josh Hazlewood 158
Pat Cummins 147
Steve Smith 105
Mitchell Starc 87
Alex Carey 84
Adam Zampa 82
Cameron Green 75
Xavier Bartlett 55
Marcus Stoinis 50
Mitch Marsh 50
Having already taken out the ODI Player of the Year prize earlier in the evening, Head was just four votes away from adding the Test (he was one vote behind Hazlewood) and T20I (three votes behind Adam Zampa) awards in what would have been an extraordinary clean sweep.
His maiden AB Medal is a result sure to rival the popularity of Marsh’s last year, when the allrounder memorably thanked the national team’s leaders for persisting with him despite admitting “I’m a bit fat at times and I love a beer”.
Given Australia’s final match of the current World Test Championship cycle is only three days away, Head’s circuit Bolles might (for now) remain on the same ice he likes to put his finger in after his part-time off-spin picks up a wicket.
He is the second first-time AB Medal winner in as many years, highlighting Australia’s growing depth of contributors in recent times after the same four players (Steve Smith four times, David Warner three, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc once each) won the award nine times in a row.
Head’s performances in the eligibility period that began on January 10, 2024, and finished with the final Border-Gavaskar Trophy match earlier this month leave little room for quibbling he was Australia’s standout men’s player.
His campaign got underway with a blistering 119 at Adelaide Oval against West Indies, the first of his four centuries across all formats (all the other Australian batters managed just five between them) that he scored last year.
Head’s hot form continued with a blazing 154no from only 129 balls in an ODI at Trent Bridge in September, capping a dominant tour of the United Kingdom in which he also posted two rapid half-centuries against Scotland and England.
Consecutive tons in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series in the two Tests immediately after Australia’s shock defeat in Perth were integral to his side coming back from 0-1 down to beat India in a bilateral Test series for the first time in a decade.
Given Head had already franked his reputation as one of Test cricket’s most feared batters, it might well be said it was his vast improvement in the shortest form that clinched him his latest major accolade.
In the five-and-a-half years immediately before the voting period commenced, Head had played just 38 T20s for club and country. In a seven-month stretch from February to September last year, he played 39 T20s.
That included a standout World Cup campaign in the Caribbean where he was Australia’s best performed batter with 255 runs at 42.50 and a strike rate of 158.
Although it did not count to his votes tally, last year’s Indian Premier League campaign for Sunrisers Hyderabad in which he was the world’s richest T20 league’s most destructive batter (with 567 runs at a strike rate of 191.55) further underlined his credentials to be considered the game’s most feared batter across all formats.