The McGilvray Medal is an annual award given by ABC

Australian Broadcasting Corporation

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly referred to as "the ABC" , is Australia's national public broadcaster...

 Radio to the player adjudged by the commentators to be the best Australian cricketer of the preceding year. The medal is named for Alan McGilvray

Alan McGilvray

Alan David McGilvray AM MBE was an Australian cricketer who played several first-class seasons for New South Wales in the mid-1930s before becoming the doyen of Australian cricket commentators...

, a long-time ABC cricket commentator.

In 2004, the medal was won by Damien Martyn

Damien Martyn

Damien Richard Martyn is a former Australian cricketer. He played for the national team sporadically in 1992–1994 before becoming a regular ODI player in 1999–2000 and a regular Test player in 2001 until his retirement in late 2006...

 who scored 1353 runs at an average

Batting average

Batting average is a statistic in both cricket and baseball that measures the performance of cricket batsmen and baseball hitters. The two statistics are related in that baseball averages are directly descended from the concept of cricket averages.- Cricket :...

 of 56.37 with 6 centuries and 5 half-centuries. Martyn was presented the medal by Australian Prime Minister, John Howard

John Howard

John Winston Howard AC, SSI, was the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, from 11 March 1996 to 3 December 2007. He was the second-longest serving Australian Prime Minister after Sir Robert Menzies....

, during the 2005 SCG

Sydney Cricket Ground

The Sydney Cricket Ground is a sports stadium in Sydney in Australia. It is used for Australian football, Test cricket, One Day International cricket, some rugby league and rugby union matches and is the home ground for the New South Wales Blues cricket team and the Sydney Swans of the Australian...

 test match. In 2005 the medal was awarded to Shane Warne

Shane Warne

Shane Keith Warne is a former Australian international cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of the game. In 2000, he was selected by a panel of cricket experts as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Century, the only specialist bowler selected in the quintet...

 for his record breaking 96 wickets at 22.02 in 2005. This included 40 wickets at 19.92 in the 2005 Ashes series

2005 Ashes series

The 2005 Ashes series was that year's edition of the long-standing and storied cricket rivalry between England and Australia. Starting on 21 July 2005, England and Australia played five Tests, with the Ashes held by Australia as the most recent victors...

 in England. Ricky Ponting

Ricky Ponting

Ricky Thomas Ponting , nicknamed Punter, is an Australian cricketer, a former captain of the Australian cricket team between 2004 and 2011 in Test cricket and 2002 and 2011 in One Day International cricket. He is a specialist right-handed batsman, slips and close catching fielder, as well as a very...

 won the award in 2006, after leading the Australian cricket team

Australian cricket team

The Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...

 to 10 consecutive test wins in the calendar year and amassing 1,333 runs at an average of 88.86. The 2008 winner of the medal was Mitchell Johnson

Mitchell Johnson (cricketer)

Mitchell Guy Johnson is an Australian cricketer. He is a left-arm fast bowler and left-handed batsman. He was awarded the International Cricket Council's 2009 "Cricketer of the Year" award, the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy.-Career:...

.