Sutherland’s Steve Smith seems likely to cap off an already amazing summer by winning his first Allan Border Medal at tonight’s presentation in Sydney.
If the batsman, 25, does indeed take home Australian cricket’s top individual honour, he will be the third Sutherland player to receive the award since its beginnings in 2000, joining all-rounder Shane Watson and former Test bowler Glenn McGrath.
While Smith is the red-hot favourite, fast scoring opening batsman David Warner is considered to be Smith’s biggest competition.
Smith made more runs than Warner in the voting period — 1756 at 67.54 — and made Australian history with centuries in his first three Tests as captain and was named Player of the Series in Australia’s Border-Gavaskar Trophy triumph.
After a record breaking 12 months across all formats of the game Smith is also in contention to become the first player since fellow Sutherland teammate Shane Watson in 2011 to sweep the Test and ODI player-of-the-year awards and the overall AB medal.