After the Indian Premier League (IPL), not many T20 franchise leagues have had as much of an impact as the Big Bash League (BBL). There’s plenty of innovation on the organiser’s side but it wouldn’t be the same without the batsmen bringing in the big hits every season. Here on this page, we’re going to talk about the top batsmen at the end of every BBL T20 season.
While there’s the overall BBL most runs list of batsmen with the most runs in the history of the tournament, we’re going to specifically talk about the batsmen who excelled in every single edition of this tournament, from BBL 2011/12 till date. Nowadays, the leading run scorer in a BBL season wears the golden cap and the award given to the top run scorer at the end of the season is awarded the GOLDEN BAT award.
And while golden bat was a new addition to the Big Bash League, we’re going to talk about every batsman who ended with the Golden Bat award since the start of the BBL tournament, updated 4th February 2023, at the end of the BBL 2022/23 season. Circumstances are different today as compared to earlier, with players getting longer BBL schedules and thus more matches each season, which you can see below.
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So far, we’ve had 12 editions of the Big Bash League completed and at the end of each season, it’s usually an Australian local player who ends with the Golden Bat award. Only once in these twelve BBL seasons has a non-Aussie won the award, and that was in BBL 2020/21 when England’s Alex Hales ended as the top run scorer of the tenth edition of the Big Bash League. See our complete BBL golden bat winners list:
Big Bash League – Golden Bat winners list
| Year | Batsman | Team | Runs (Games) | Average | Top Score |
| 2011/12 | Travis Birt | Hobart Hurricanes | 345 (8) | 43.12 | 74 |
| 2012/13 | Shaun Marsh | Perth Scorchers | 412 (9) | 58.85 | 85 |
| 2013/14 | Ben Dunk | Hobart Hurricanes | 395 (10) | 43.88 | 96 |
| 2014/15 | Michael Klinger | Perth Scorchers | 326 (10) | 36.22 | 105* |
| 2015/16 | Chris Lynn | Brisbane Heat | 378 (8) | 54.00 | 101 |
| 2016/17 | Ben Dunk (2) | Adelaide Strikers | 364 (8) | 52.00 | 85 |
| 2017/18 | D’Arcy Short | Hobart Hurricanes | 572 (11) | 57.20 | 122* |
| 2018/19 | D’Arcy Short (2) | Hobart Hurricanes | 637 (15) | 53.08 | 96* |
| 2019/20 | Marcus Stoinis | Melbourne Stars | 705 (17) | 54.23 | 147* |
| 2020/21 | Alex Hales | Sydney Thunder | 543 (15) | 38.78 | 110 |
| 2021/22 | Ben McDermott | Hobart Hurricanes | 577 (13) | 48.08 | 127 |
| 2022/23 | Aaron Hardie | Perth Scorchers | 460 (15) | 41.81 | 90* |
Maybe because the locals know the conditions better or maybe because they get a whole window to play the full season as compared to overseas pros, or maybe because the Big Bash has always allowed only 2 overseas players per team. But the fact is that the Aussie players have dominated individual seasons, and Tasmanian Travis Birt was the first to win the Golden Bat, all the way back in 2011/12.
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He was followed by two more left-handed batsmen in Shaun Marsh and Ben Dunk, winning the award in BBL 2 and BBL 3 respectively. A few seasons later in BBL 2016/17, Ben Dunk went on to top the run scoring charts once again, this time for Adelaide Strikers after doing it for Hobart Hurricanes the first time around. With that, he came the first in BBL history to win the Golden Bat on two separate occasions.
He was soon followed by D’Arcy Short, any left-handed batsman who became the next and the only other player to win the golden bat award multiple times. Short did this in consecutive seasons between BBL 2017/18 and BBL 2018/19, when he was going through the best patch of his cricketing career, scoring 572 runs and 637 runs respectively in those seasons.
Short became the first batsman to scale 500+ runs in a single edition of the Big Bash League and then he went on to became the first to score 600+ runs in a single edition the very next year. In BBL 2019/20, Marcus Stoinis of the Melbourne Stars broke his record to become the first to get 700+ runs in a single season and he still holds that record, amassing 705 runs in 17 games with an average of 54+ that season.
For more updates from the world of cricket and in particular the Big Bash League, stay tuned to ReadScoops.com.
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