Run-machine Voges scoops WACA gongs
Runs. Wins. Trophies. Medals. Selection.
There is barely an accolade Adam Voges has not received in his season of plenty and he finished his golden summer last night with another raft of honours.
Fresh from selection in the Test squads to play in the West Indies and Britain this winter, Voges swept the WACA awards night with wins in the two major categories.
Voges won the Gold Cup as WA’s best player at all levels and the Laurie Sawle Medal as the best State performer after a season in which he set a new Sheffield Shield runs record and led his teams to wins in the Matador Cup and Big Bash League and a place in the shield final.
Marcus North, Voges’ predecessor as captain, is the only other player to win both awards in the same season.
And Voges would be hoping to replicate North’s feat in 2008-09 when a brilliant domestic season foreshadowed a Test debut and a significant international career.
Voges polled 61 votes from his teammates in the Sawle Medal to see off prolific recruit Michael Klinger (41) and Nathan Coulter-Nile (40).
And he received a maximum 60 votes from 12 WA media outlets to secure the Gold Cup.
Klinger was again second with 40, while internationals Mitchell Johnson (31), Mitch Marsh (21) and Shaun Marsh (16) filled the minor positions.
The inaugural Simon Katich Medal for the outstanding Perth Scorchers player was won by paceman Jason Behrendorff, while Voges and Coulter-Nile secured the four-day and one-day honours.
England veteran Charlotte Edwards won the Zoe Goss Medal as the Western Fury’s best player, while Cameron Bancroft and Heather Graham won the respective rising star awards in men’s and women’s cricket.
WA coach Justin Langer was an automatic induction into the WACA’s Gallery of Greats after the expiry of five years since he retired as a player.
No Australian has more first-class runs than Langer’s 28,382.
Pioneering bowler Bobby Selk, who played crucial roles in WA’s first three interstate wins and was a giant in State and club ranks at the turn of the 20th century, was also inducted.
Incoming England and Wales Cricket Board chairman Colin Graves has confirmed he is tabling proposals to shorten Test matches from five days to four.
“Personally, I think we should look at four-day Test cricket and play 105 overs a day starting at 10.30 in the morning, and finish when you finish as all the grounds now have lights,” said Graves, who takes up his role next month.
“Every Test match would start on a Thursday, with Thursday and Friday being corporate days and then Saturday and Sunday the family days.
World Cup hero Mitchell Starc is expected to miss the first three weeks of the Indian Premier League because of injury.
The Australian paceman is believed to have a minor knee strain.
