DEATH OF A LOVABLE LARRIKIN
FOR cricket fans, Andrew Symonds was something different. He was cut from a different cloth. A throwback to a time before sports science.
He was the every man’s cricketer. Salt of the earth.
In the modern world where “high performance” is an obsession, “Roy” just wanted to play the game. And he was darn good at it.
There was a time when Australians thought Symonds should be nowhere near the ODI team.
Picked ahead of Steve Waugh for the 2003 World Cup, Symonds played the innings of his life against Pakistan to prove to himself he belonged.
It wasn’t long before he was the best ODI cricketer in the world.
An IPL’s dream, Symonds was the best middle-order batsman in the world, could bowl seam up and tweakers and was unquestionably the best outfielder in the world.
Symonds revolutionised the way ODI cricket was played.
When he wasn’t playing, he wasn’t obsessing about it.
Forget meetings, when Symonds wasn’t playing he wanted to clear the joint and go fishing.
It’s what ultimately ended his international career.
Symonds was big on loyalty.
It’s what made him a cricketer.
Were it not for Ricky Ponting backing him against the odds in 2003, he might never have made it.
Shortly after, as Symonds questioned his place in the Test arena, Shane Warne made the dreadlocked allrounder look at himself in the mirror.
Warne said Symonds needed to ask himself some tough questions.
“He was just a generous man,” Symonds told Fox Cricket in March, as he paid tribute to Warne following his tragic death.
“I remember, I had been in and out of the side for a while. He came to me one day and he said, ‘Roy, you know you can do this, aye?’ And I said, ‘Mate, it’s an intimidating place the Australian dressing shed and I had doubts.
“He said, ‘Roy, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. It’s time for you to start asking some questions and don’t be afraid’.
“I tell people that regularly.”
The weekend’s news of Symonds’ passing hits home hard.
At 46, he has gone far too early.
The dreadlocks remain etched in the mind, so too the white zinc. Symonds was a larrikin.
When he smashed Jehan Mubarak uppishly down the ground and it
clipped Michael Clarke’s leg and somehow ended in the hands of Tillakaratne Dilshan all Roy could do was have a chuckle.
“Beer thanks” he signalled to Clarke, as he made his way off Docklands after a 61-ball 66, which included four overthe-ropes.
Capsized boat? No worries for Roy, who together with Matthew Hayden swam to shore in shark infested waters.
Not great for the boat, but good for a yarn.
At times you couldn’t reach Symonds on the phone.
It was only in February he messaged: “Mate, I have been at sea for the last two days. Can you remind me again tomorrow mate and we’ll get it done.”
That was who Symonds was.
When he wasn’t fishing he was hunting.
But on the cricket field, Symonds’ mind moved like a clock ticking.
The master of scenarios, he helped Australia to backto-back World Cups in 2003 and 2007.
He averaged 163 during the 2003 World Cup in South Africa and four years later averaged 63 in the Caribbean.
Symonds was also making a move into the world of coaching.
He was due to help Warne in The Hundred in England this year before his shocking death.