Outstanding Smith wins Allan Border medal
Australia batsman and stand-in captain Steve Smith capped off an outstanding Australian summer by sweeping the awards at the Australia cricket awards ceremony in Sydney on Tuesday.
Smith won all the awards that he was nominated in, namely Test cricketer of the year, ODI cricket of the year and the big one, the Allan Border medal, which recognises the Australian cricketer of the year.
It was the 25 year-old's first time he received the Allan Border medal, and joins elite company in winning the medal such as former players Ricky Ponting, Steve Waugh and current national captain Michael Clarke.
Opening batsman David Warner ran Smith a close second for the prestigious medal, but it was his ODI from that tipped the scales in Smith's favour.
During the voting period, between 24 January 2014 until 110 January 2015, Smith hit 1212 runs in the said period while Warner tallied a total of 1209 runs in Test cricket in the same period.
Smith has also struck three ODI centuries in the past four months and that was the key, as he cemented his place as Australia's best player during the last year.
Besides Smith other award winners included allrounder Glen Maxwell taking the T20I player of the year while New South Wales seamer Sean Abbott, who fatally felled former Australia batsman Phillip Hughes with a bouncer in November, took the Young cricketer of the year prize.
Meg Lanning took home the Belinda Clarke award, which recognises the best female cricketer in the country for the past year.
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