Tributes flow for larrakin legend

ANDREW Symonds’ wife Laura has paid a touching tribute to her late husband as the enigmatic cricket star’s best mate Matthew Hayden reveals his devastation at shock passing.

“We are still in shock – I’m just thinking of the two kids,’’ a tearful Laura said. “He was such a big person and there is just so much of him in his kids.’’ Laura (inset) and children Chloe and Billy flew from Sydney to Townsville on Sunday morning after being informed of Andrew’s death in a horror crash on Saturday night.

Symonds retired to Townsville soon after his playing days finished and relished the far north lifestyle with regular fishing trips where he would chase barramundi and set crab pots.

“He was the most laid-back person. Nothing stressed him out. He was an extremely chilled operator. So practical,” Laura said. “He was never good with his phone, but he always had time for everyone.’’

Among Symonds closest friends were cricket mates Jimmy Maher, Adam Gilchrist and Matthew Hayden, who loved his basic team loyalty and uniqueness as a character.

Symonds used to occasionally poke fun at himself in all manners of life, once saying “my kids are pretty much idiot-proof, even when I look after them’’, but beneath the self-deprecation lay a sharp mind.

“He always felt extremely self-conscious about his intellect and would say, ‘I didn’t go to uni and don’t have degrees’, but he was so practical and really intelligent in his own way,’’ Laura said.

Hayden, in India commentating on the Indian Premier League, was woken on Sunday

with the news that his great mate Andrew Symonds had been killed in a car crash.

“We were joined at the hip for 20 years,’’ Hayden said, claiming that sharing the crease with Symonds when he made his debut Test century on Boxing Day 2006 was the highlight of his career.

“When he got his hundred he launched himself into my arms and it crunched my helmet into my head so hard it split my forehead. But there was no happier moment in my career.

“By that stage we had known each other for 12 or 13 years. We had been through child births, (Andrew’s first) marriage breakdown, funerals and an abundance of tremendous fishing trips and countless cold Fourex bitters. He was a hard man not to love. He had so much charisma and mystery. He had a sharp wit, but he would stand up to anyone or anything if he didn’t think something was right. He would dress down the PM if he felt it was fair.’’