Smith to keep chasing improvement

Steve Smith still believes he has room to improve his game at the highest level, even after winning a record-equalling fourth Allan Border Medal,

Smith took out the award for men’s cricketer of the year at the Australian Cricket Awards on Monday night. Batter Beth Mooney claimed the Belinda Clark Award as best women’s player.

Once 3-2-1 votes from players, umpires and media were tallied, Smith (171 votes) comfortably beat out Travis Head (144) and David Warner (141) to equal Ricky Ponting and Michael Clarke for most wins.

The award came as the culmination of Smith’s decision to recalibrate his batting technique, an overhaul he began considering as early as 2019.

Smith reaped the rewards during the home Test summer, making an unbeaten 200 against West Indies, his highest Test score in three years. He backed it up with 104 in his home Test at the SCG against South Africa and has averaged 71.92 in Test matches in the past 12 months.

But Smith said he wasn’t content to stop there.

“I hope there’s more to come,” he told reporters.

“That’s what I strive for every day, to be the best player that I can be.

“I made some adjustments in the last six months. It took me a while to do, I had to work through a few things.

“It’s started to work well for me. Hopefully I can just keep getting better and better.”

Mooney polled 129 votes to receive the Belinda Clark Award for the second time.

Meg Lanning finished second in the tally with 110 votes, despite an extended leave of absence, and allrounder Tahlia McGrath placed third with 95.

Averaging 100.75 across 10 ODIs last year, Mooney was a crucial member of Australia’s gold medal-winning Commonwealth Games campaign and their triumph at the ODI World Cup campaign, where she was named in the team of the tournament.

Mooney was also named Women’s ODI Player Of The Year having posted a career-high 133 in her most recent ODI to help Australia complete a clean sweep of the home series against Pakistan.

Her stellar year came after suffering a nasty nets injury that threw her Ashes and ODI World Cup campaigns into doubt last summer.

Mooney’s injury required surgery to insert three metal plates into her face and forced her to adopt a liquid diet but miraculously, she bounced back to play in the Ashes only days later.

“You don’t play the game of cricket to win these awards or for personal accolades, you play for team success, and we certainly had a whole bunch of that this year, which was amazing to be a part of,” Mooney said.

“Given at the start of (the year), I didn’t think I was going to be playing too much after that incident.”

As part of the ceremony at Royal Randwick Racecourse, Test revenant Usman Khawaja was named the inaugural Shane Warne Men’s Test Player Of The Year for his consistency with the bat locally and abroad.

David Warner was named the Men’s ODI Player Of The Year, with Adam Zampa overlooked for nomination despite being selected in the ICC’s ODI Team Of The Year. Marcus Stoinis took Men’s T20I Player Of The Year

CRICKET AUSTRALIA AWARDS WINNERS:

Belinda Clark Award – Beth Mooney (129 votes)

2nd : Meg Lanning (110)

3rd : Tahlia McGrath (95)

Allan Border Medal – Steve Smith (171 votes)

2nd : Travis Head (144)

3rd : David Warner (141)

Women’s ODI Player of the Year – Beth Mooney

Women’s T20I Player of the Year – Tahlia McGrath

Shane Warne Men’s Test Player of the Year – Usman Khawaja

Men’s ODI Player of the Year – David Warner

Men’s T20I Player of the Year – Marcus Stoinis