Steve Smith took a giant step towards assuming the reins from Australian captain Michael Clarke after sweeping the Allan Border Medal in Sydney on Tuesday night.
Smith went home with a trifecta of awards, running away with the player-of-the-year gong after being crowned the country's best one-day and Test player.
In recent seasons Clarke has dominated Australian cricket's night of nights - taking home two of the three previous Allan Border Medals and picking up the Test player-of-the-year award from 2012-14.
With Clarke sidelined with a hamstring injury and his future in the game up in the air, Smith has signalled he is ready to shoulder the load of being the side's talisman after a stellar 2014 and a golden summer, in which he was named man of the series of the 2-0 victory over India.
At 33, Clarke is nearing the twilight of his career and had to sit out most of the Australian summer because of back and hamstring problems.
A rift has also reportedly emerged between Clarke and Australian team management, dating back to the start of the summer when he was attempting to prove his fitness for the Gabba Test.
Clarke had preferred to make his comeback via Sydney grade cricket, in contradiction to Cricket Australia's wishes that he play a two-day tour match - a saga which rankled officials.
Smith has already assumed the Test captaincy in Clarke's absence and has proven himself one of the world's premier batsmen after amassing 1756 runs at an average of 67.54 in all forms of the game last year.
"I feel like I've been hitting the ball really well for the last six-to-12 months," Smith said.
"I'm just really happy with where my game's at, I've obviously got a lot more runs in the last little bit, converting the starts to big hundreds and I think that's been a big focus for me to do that."
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