Annabel Sutherland has won the Belinda Clark Award as Australia’s best player for the second year in a row.
Sutherland beat Beth Mooney to the top prize by 77 votes to 74 during a period dominated by the ODI World Cup. Outside of that tournament, the only other matches included were the three-match T20I series against New Zealand last March and three ODIs against India before the World Cup.
Sutherland, who, unsurprisingly, also received the ODI award, is the first player to win the Belinda Clark Award consecutively since Meg Lanning in 2014 and 2015. Current Australia coach Shelly Nitschke won it four years in a row, from 2009 to 2012. Karen Rolton and Lisa Sthalekar are others who have won it consecutively.
“It’s pretty special to be around some of those names,” Sutherland said. “I think it’s cool and very surreal right now.”
“To be honest, I was quite surprised. I hadn’t thought much about who was going to win. [An] absolutely special and super grateful feeling to receive the award from BC [Belinda Clark]”.
In the nine ODIs that Australia played, Sutherland scored 216 runs at 43.20 with a best of 98 not out against England and claimed 19 wickets at 18.84. In the three T20Is against New Zealand he also took eight wickets.
Mooney bagged the T20I Player of the Year award for scoring 166 runs at 83.00 in the New Zealand series.
Legspinner Alana King came third in the overall vote after claiming 13 wickets in the ODI World Cup, including a record 7 for 18 against South Africa.
Nicola Carey and Caoimhe Bray were previously announced as the national player of the year and Betty Wilson as young cricketer of the year.
Normally Cricket Australia’s awards are announced at a gala event around this time of year, but the schedules of the men’s and women’s teams have made it impossible to find a date when the players will be in the country at the same time. Last year, Travis Head received the Allan Border Medal at a hotel in Sri Lanka. The 2026 men’s winners will be announced later.
“He looked different [but] It’s still special, obviously, to have [Belinda Clark] there and doing it in front of the team, the most important thing,” Sutherland said. “It would be nice to get everyone in Australian cricket together so we could celebrate, but that wasn’t the case this year.”
Meanwhile, also on Sunday, former Australia captain Alex Blackwell was inducted into the Australian Cricket Hall of Fame. Blackwell’s international career spanned from 2003 to 2018, where he played 251 matches across all formats, including 12 Tests, 144 ODIs and 95 T20Is.
In ODIs she scored 3,492 runs at 36:00, including her three international centuries, and played in the 2005 and 2013 ODI World Cup-winning teams. She captained Australia to their first T20 World Cup title in 2010.
