Australia all-rounder Mitchell Marsh on Wednesday (31st January) won the Cricket Australia’s best player of the year 2023. The lanky player was awarded the Allan Border Medal for his heroics in all three formats of the game during the last year.
Mitchell Marsh made a staggering return to the Australia team. He was one of the main reasons behind the team’s success in all three formats. His heroics in the Test especially saw him winning the most prestigious award of Cricket Australia.
Mitchell Marsh bagged 223 votes for the Allan Border, which was 79 more than the next most vote-getter, Pat Cummins, who got 144 votes. This is his first cricketer year of the award and he became only the second all-rounder after Shane Watson since 2011 to claim the award.
Mitchell Marsh surpassed Pat Cummins (second with 144 votes), Steve Smith (third with 141 votes), Mitchell Starc (fourth with 135), Travis Head (134) and Marnus Labuschagne (129) to claim the award. This was for the first time in 9 years that someone other than Steve Smith (four times), David Warner (three), Mitchell Starc and Cummins (once each) won the award.
Mitchell Marsh made a return to Test cricket during the third game of Ashes 2023 after Cameron Green was injured. He made the statement immediately as he racked up a 118-run knock when Australia was tumbling at 85/4. After that, he didn’t stop and scored runs consistently.
Mitchell Marsh scored 540 runs across 10 innings at an average of 67.5 to go with one century and 4 fifties to his name. He amassed 858 runs at an average of over 47 in 20 ODIs and also mustered 186 runs at a strike rate of 186 in three T20is.
On winning the award, Mitchell Marsh got emotional and thanked skipper Pat Cummins and head coach Andrew McDonald for changing his life. He said that he didn’t think of winning the award before joking that people won’t look back at his win and see it as a ‘weird time’. He also made a hilarious admission that he loves beer a lot. He stated:
“I’d like to pay particular thanks to Ronny and Patty. You believed in me, I can’t thank you enough for believing in me. I’m a bit fat at times and I love a beer but you see the best in me always and you’ve changed my life so thank you very much.”
“To our team, I just love playing in this team now. I’ve had so much fun, especially over the last 12 to 18 months. We’ve had so much team success and Im really proud to have contributed to that over this period of time. Everybody knows I love a good time and when you keep winning it just gets better and better, so it’s been great.”
“I hadn’t really thought about it until a few of the boys started getting stuck into me that they thought I was going to win it, then I started thinking maybe I’m a chance. I had four beers at lunch, so I had to stop there.
Now I’m sort of hoping that me winning this isn’t like COVID, and we’ll look back in three years time and go that was a weird time. One of my friends sent me today the list (of previous winners), and I just thought if I win, it’s going to look weird. To think that I’ve joined some of the legends of our sport, it really is a huge honour. I can’t believe it.”
Here’s the video:
Your Allan Border Medalist is…
Mitch Marsh!#AusCricketAwards pic.twitter.com/vkAqJ4yyb9
— 7Cricket (@7Cricket) January 31, 2024
A special thank you from Mitch Marsh to his family, Andrew McDonald, and Pat Cummins 🙌 pic.twitter.com/kmMXg0cmRv
— 7Cricket (@7Cricket) January 31, 2024
List of all award winners at Cricket Australia’s awards; Mitchell Marsh bags ODI Player of the Year as well
Allan Border Medalist: Mitchell Marsh
Belinda Clark Award: Ashleigh Gardner
Shane Warne Men’s Test Player of the Year: Nathan Lyon
Men’s ODI Player of the Year: Mitchell Marsh
Women’s ODI Player of the Year: Ellyse Perry
Men’s T20I Player of the Year: Jason Behrendorff
Women’s T20I Player of the Year: Ellyse Perry
Men’s Domestic Cricketer of the Year: Cameron Bancroft
Women’s Domestic Cricketer of the Year: Sophie Day and Elyse Villani
Bradman Young Cricketer of the Year: Fergus O’Neill
Betty Wilson Young Cricketer of the Year: Emma de Broughe
Community Impact Award: Ashleigh Gardner
BBL Player of the Tournament: Matthew Short
WBBL Player of the Tournament: Chamari Athapaththu
Woolworths Cricket Blaster of the Year: Taj Bower
