Symonds sent home

[barbarian]

Game over for monkeyboy methinks.

Symonds sent home from Twenty20

Australian all-rounder Andrew Symonds is being sent home from the World Twenty20 cricket tournament in England for breaking a number of team rules related to alcohol and other issues.

Cricket Australia (CA) chief executive James Sutherland called a press conference in Melbourne on Thursday night to make a statement about the troubled Queenslander.

Sutherland said Symonds, 33, broke a number of rules ``in the last 24-48 hours'' and CA were now organising flights to get him back to Australia.

Symonds' CA contract, which he retained only last month, is also now under review, Sutherland said.

``In isolation the breaches that I am talking about are not serious, but in the scheme of things, in the scheme of history, they are enough for it to be the final straw,'' Sutherland said.

The Australians were due to face the West Indies on Saturday in their first match of the tournament, but they will now do so without Symonds.

Captain Ricky Ponting will shortly front another press conference in London to address the situation.

The Australian team's leadership group had a meeting after becoming aware of the situation and expressed their concerns to CA.

A CA board meeting on Thursday night then endorsed the leadership group's concerns and they are talking to the International Cricket Council about organising a possible replacement player.

It is likely Symonds' international career could now be over after the latest in a long list of problems off the field.

Symonds, who failed to earn selection in Australia's Ashes squad announced last month, has been embroiled in a series of off-field indiscretions over the past year.

He was suspended from the national team in September last year for going fishing instead of attending a team meeting, while Symonds also had a run-in with a fan in a Brisbane hotel in November.

He played the first four Tests of the Australian summer before he was sidelined due to a knee operation.

The Queenslander was then barred from the squad that toured South Africa this year and fined by Cricket Australia after criticising New Zealand's Brendon McCullum on a radio show.

Symonds, who was also suspended in 2005 for arriving for a match under the influence of alcohol, received counselling earlier this year and returned to national colours in the victorious one-day series win over Pakistan in Dubai in April.

He was picked in the World Twenty20 squad after playing in the Indian Premier League, but he now has to pack his bags and head home.

AAP

A sad end to an unsatisfying career. What unfilled potential. At least I now feel vindicated in my dislike and distrust of him as a cricketer, I think this is probably a fitting end to his international career.

 

[Gagger]

Great tribute here

http://www.cricketwithballs.com/2009/06/04/raise-your-glasses/comment-page-1/#comment-16559

 

[Lindommer]

Andrew Symonds has every right to feel pissed off about his treatment from the alickadoos at the ACB: their total lack of support for him and complete capitulation to the Indians over the Harbhajan Singh monkey incident was disgraceful. I can only imagine he feels particularly bitter to every vestige of authority in Australian cricket and subconsciously (or maybe consciously) narks them while refusing to accept any of its rules. I'm surprised he's even interested in representing Australia.

Andrew would be well advised to quit Australia and finish his cricket career playing in England. It's all very sad; future reunions including players from his time will be awkward at best.

 

[barbarian]

Andrew Symonds has every right to feel pissed off about his treatment from the alickadoos at the ACB: their total lack of support for him and complete capitulation to the Indians over the Harbhajin Singh monkey incident was disgraceful. I can only imagine he feels particularly bitter to every vestige of authority in Australian cricket and subconsciously (or maybe consciously) narks them while refusing to accept any of its rules. I'm surprised he's even interested in representing Australia.

Andrew would be well advised to quit Australia and finish his cricket career playing in England. It's all very sad; future reunions including players from his time will be awkward at best.

Totally disagree with you there. Maybe CA handled the monkey thing badly, but the admins are the last guys he should be angry at- they stuck up for him at every turn and picked him in teams he probably didn't deserve to make. Yes they have disciplined him over various incidents, but kept picking him and picking him and picking him, often on the basis of shaky domestic form.

The fact that he still had an international career is a testament to the patience of James Sutherland, Andrew Hilditch and co. I think the simple answer here is he is just a fairly arrogant guy who can't control himself when he's on the drink. Both of these flaws have brought him undone on numerous occasions.

 

[formeropenside]

Totally agree with Lindommer, myself. Pretty spineless behaviour by the ACB.

 

[Cutter]

Totally agree with Lindommer, myself. Pretty spineless behaviour by the ACB.

I agree that incident was spineless on the part of the ACB and regrettable in so many ways. However, Symonds cant blame the ACB for who he is and what he has done. He has to take responsibility for himself.

 

[rugbywhisperer]

This is, despite what some might say is NOT a welfare based society. We all have rights and we all are responsible for our own actions.
Yes the ACB shafted him (and others) big time in the name of expediency (read - crawling up the collective arses of the sub continent cricket nations) but if he was a man he should have taken that and moved on.
His behaviour is not that of a team player. he could have really gone on and done some wonderful things but HE chose not to - no one esle.
If he wants to delegate his decision making to a bottle then so be it but we can't blame the ACB for that.

 

[Moses]

Andrew would be well advised to quit Australia and finish his cricket career playing in England. It's all very sad; future reunions including players from his time will be awkward at best.

He was born in Birmingham, wonder what the rules are on playing FOR England...

 

[Pfitzy]

Well, you can't deny that CA are a bunch of gormless fucks for not telling the Indians to fuck right off and take their little arrogant, bearded, racist, fuckwit with them.

But that said, Symonds should have responded in the best way: get the fuck on with it and smash a few tons, then hit one straight back at the little prick next time they meet and wipe the arrogant smirk off the little chucker.

 

[Biffo]

I recall that this man's "alcohol-fuelled incidents" (lovey euphemism for drunken, atrocious behaviour) started long before Harbajan monkeyed with him.

I agree partly with Lindommer, with respect to the monkeying around matter. The hearing was a real hoot to me as Harbajan's lawyer said that, in the heat of the moment, the under-stress Harbajan reverted to his mother tongue and said a few words in his mother tongue Hindi. My mirth arose from Harbajan being a Sikh.

 

[cyclopath]

I recall that this man's "alcohol-fuelled incidents" (lovey euphemism for drunke, atrocious behaviour) started long before Harbajan monkeyed with him.

I agree partly with Lindommer, with respect to the monkeying around matter. The hearing was a real hoot to me as Harbajan's lawyer said that, in the heat of the moment, the under-stress Harbajan reverted to his mother tongue and said a few words in his mother tongue Hindi. My mirth arose from Harbajan being a Sikh.

Isn't an alcohol-fuelled incident when a drag-racer blows up half-way down the quarter mile? Or setting fire to one's hair with a flaming Sambucca? Perhaps Symo likes lighting his farts!

 

[Pfitzy]

I recall that this man's "alcohol-fuelled incidents" (lovey euphemism for drunke, atrocious behaviour) started long before Harbajan monkeyed with him.

Probably, but that's not the point. I reckon if you'd just been backstabbed by your own governing body because they were pissweak, you'd probably take it up a notch.

 

[barbarian]

I recall that this man's "alcohol-fuelled incidents" (lovey euphemism for drunke, atrocious behaviour) started long before Harbajan monkeyed with him.

Probably, but that's not the point. I reckon if you'd just been backstabbed by your own governing body because they were pissweak, you'd probably take it up a notch.

What, and deliberately sabotage your own professional career? Give me a break, one incident of poor CA management is no excuse for multiple fuckups over the past three years.

 

[formeropenside]

I recall that this man's "alcohol-fuelled incidents" (lovey euphemism for drunke, atrocious behaviour) started long before Harbajan monkeyed with him.

Probably, but that's not the point. I reckon if you'd just been backstabbed by your own governing body because they were pissweak, you'd probably take it up a notch.

What, and deliberately sabotage your own professional career? Give me a break, one incident of poor CA management is no excuse for multiple fuckups over the past three years.

I think you will find Symonds being very paid to do very little in the IPL.

 

[Pfitzy]

What, and deliberately sabotage your own professional career? Give me a break, one incident of poor CA management is no excuse for multiple fuckups over the past three years.

The alternative being to simply retire from rep cricket and have all of us calling him a weak fluffybunny. This way at least he got to drink a shedload of CA's money doing it

 

[Lindommer]

Once again we get a sensible missive from The Australian: Peter Lalor on Friday, 6 June.

A FORMER team-mate asked this morning if it had to end this way. Wondered if the rod was taken to Andrew Symonds earlier would his career have ended this way.

“Symo” had been dancing on the window ledge for four years now, baring his bum at his paymasters on the other side of the glass and snubbing his nose at team-mates who peered out of hotel room windows with worried looks on their faces. He was always the one who went too far when the light at the back of the bar fridge got bright. But by then there was a darkness in his eyes and heart and everyone knew that it was a foolhardy man who suggested he tone it down at this point of the night. There's a lot of hate in Andrew Symonds come 2am, but his team-mates stuck by him because there were a lot of laughs during most other time zones. He'd been on the ledge before and slipped, but always got leverage at the last minute, hung on long enough to be helped back up, but last night he lost his footing and hurtled out of sight.

There's a haunting symmetry to this. Back in 2005 on the eve of the Ashes tour Symonds showed up falling down drunk on the morning of a one day match against Bangladesh. Members of the Cricket Australia board wanted his contract torn up, instead the soft option was taken, he was suspended for two matches and told a repeat would see the threat turn to reality. If only. His team-mates wondered this morning if the board members had had their way, or the threat followed through, whether things would be different now.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but a taste of mortality back then when he'd hardly played a Test and was just finding his feet as a one day player, may have been the shock he needed. He would have been 29 and would have had plenty of time to get his life and career in order. Hell, it wasn't until December 2006 that he made that first hundred in a Test anyway. The hard option was not taken and now Symond's Australian career is over because of a series of minor misdemeanours.

He turns 34 on Tuesday and he was due to get a new 12 month Cricket Australia contract at the end of the month. Already his earnings had been halved. His body and mind had let him down so much he did not rank in the top 15 potential Test players but he was hanging in their with the T20 and ODIs. Now that contract won't be offered and it's going to be a hell of a reflective birthday party. Cricket Australia treated Symonds more recent indiscretions as a mental health problem and there's no doubt in my mind they were right to do so. He admitted he drank heavily because of the pressure. However, people close to Symonds say he was never ready to come back to cricket last summer and events since have proven them right. He has kept drinking, kept dropping his pants and snubbing his nose and everywhere he goes there;s the smashing of empty stubbies and a hostile glare to anybody who suggests it shouldn't be so. Cricket Australia chief executive officer James Sutherland stands by the decision to allow him back into the squad last summer.

There's a lot of what if's in life. Maybe things would have been worse for Symonds if he was left to stew in exile. In the end Symonds was given every chance and he blew every chance.

 

[Biffo]

FFS. Remember Ewen Mckenzie's great piece n the SMH when he blamed "society" and "all of us" for Wendell Sailor getting onto the whte stuff? I accept no blame whatsoever for Symonds' and Sailor's behaviour. Do you?

 

[cyclopath]

FFS. Remember Ewen Mckenzie's great piece n the SMH when he blamed "society" and "all of us" for Wendell Sailor getting onto the whte stuff? I accept no blame whatsoever for Symonds' and Sailor's behaviour. Do you?

Damn society that sends baggies of coke and slabs of beer to these guys with step by step instructions on how to ingest!! Where will it end?