The plaudits keep coming for Australian striker Sam Kerr who has been named one of five finalists for the BBC women’s footballer of the year award.

Kerr has been named along with Denmark’s Pernille Harder, England’s Lucy Bronze, Dzsenifer Marozsan (Germany) and Lieke Martens (Netherlands) for the gong, with the winner announced on 22 May.

The shortlist was selected by a panel of experts involved in the game from around the world, including coaches, players, administrators and journalists.

“I guess it’s pretty crazy to think out of the whole world there’s only five players [that have] been nominated,” said Kerr.

“There are so many great players that I look up to and I don’t put myself in the same sentence as them so obviously it’s a huge honour and a pretty surreal feeling to be honest.”

The 24-year-old Kerr has been in dominant form for the national women’s team and only last week led the Matildas to the final of the women’s Asian Cup, where they went down in a disappointing 1-0 defeat to Japan.

Kerr was left out of the Fifpro world XI last month and was also overlooked for the final list of three in last year’s world player of the year award, but she scooped the AFC women’s player of the year and the ABC Sports Personality of the Year awards. She was also named by the The International Federation of Football History in a world XI at the end of 2017.

Last year’s winner was Norwegian Ada Hegerberg, who plays for Olympique Lyonnais, while Arsenal’s Scottish international Kim Little took out the award in 2016. Nigerian Asisat Oshoala, who now plays for Dalian Quanjian in China, won the inaugural award in 2015.