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| In another league? Andrew Symonds thought about trading round balls for oval ones© Getty Images |
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Andrew Symonds had thought long and hard. Now he knew what had to be done. At 27, he was burned out, broken-hearted and all busted up inside. After nearly a decade on the fringes of big-time cricket – a period in which he had cracked Australia’s one-day team, broken big-hitting records around the world, and shown sparks of his brilliance without ever quite delivering on the promise of what had widely been predicted would be a long and glorious career – the allrounder had made the biggest decision of his life.He would quit cricket and reinvent himself as a rugby league player.It was mid-2002. The World Cup was less than a year away, and Andrew Symonds was in a slump he just couldn’t get himself out of. After a string of cheap dismissals – each softer and weirder and more despairing than the last – he’d been unceremoniously dumped from the Australian team and, in the eyes of the selectors, was now probably the No. 4 allrounder in the land, behind Shane Watson, Ian Harvey, and Brad Hogg. Moreover, the game he was "born to play" had now driven him to "the brink of madness"."I’d come to the realisation I wasn’t good enough," Symonds recalls. "To my eyes, I’d peaked and even though I wasn’t fully satisfied by what I’d achieved in cricket, I figured it was time to try something new." This, he says vehemently, "wasn’t just a whim". Symonds had discussed the life-changing career-switch with his inner circle of friends and family and, to a man (and woman), they pledged support for whatever decision he made. But in the end, it was Symonds’ call and no one could make it for him.Truth be known, the thought of first-grade footy had been nagging for some time. Like many natural born sportsman Symonds had been forced to choose as a teenager which game he’d devote his energies and ambitions to. Trophies for both junior rugby league and union – not to mention pennants for state hockey and various athletics medals – attested to his all-round dynamism. But he went with the sport he was best at and so cricket’s gain was football and hockey’s loss.Like any close knit clan, the Symonds family had gone to extraordinary lengths to give their prodigal son every chance to achieve his dreams. Having adopted Andrew as a baby in Birmingham and emigrated to Australia from England with him as an 18 month old, they had settled in Charters Towers in central Queensland, where Andrew’s father, Ken, worked as a boarding house master.Then, when Andrew’s abundant skills as a swordsman, seamer and spinner started to bloom, Ken moved the whole family – 12-year-old Andrew and his younger siblings, Louise and Nick – back into the big smoke, lock, stock, and barrel – and set their sights on the stars."My old man had thrown balls at me before and after school five days a week," says Andrew. "And when we were living way out, he’d drive me into town for club cricket on weekends. But as I got older, he wanted me to have a better standard of cricket and the only place to get that was back in Brisbane.As a youngster, Symonds was "a bony kid…but fast … and pretty mischievous". When he stepped out of line – normally it was for his habitual thieving of Mum’s biscuits and cakes – Dad’s strap (and the old `Son, this is gonna hurt you more than it hurts me’ line) sorted him out.But on the cricket field, fuelled by the deeds of his heroes Viv Richards and Kim Hughes, young Andrew was his own master and that’s where the trouble began. The kid who would become one of the world’s most feared clubbers of a cricket ball might’ve spoken softly … but even knee-high to a grasshopper he carried a VERY big stick."I guess you could say I was always … er, a positive player," laughs Symonds. "Let’s just say I wasn’t the type of kid who’d block until after lunch to get 50. I was a "striker" of the ball rather than a "stroker", just as Gilly is a striker and someone like Mark Waugh is a stroker. Both naturals, just different.Symonds got a taste for tonking early in life. "It’s an amazing feeling – there’s this split second of achievement that just explodes inside you, where you’ve hit the ball and there’s no fear of being caught because the ball’s in the bleachers. That’s when the adrenaline kicks in and that’s where a smart player throttles back a bit. But me …"Some days he sent thrills through the crowd with his sky-rockets. Some days he went down blazing. But either way, the harder Symonds swung that axe, the deeper a hole he dug for himself. "Now, looking back, I can see I was sowing a lot of seeds that would come back to haunt me when I got into serious cricket. See, as a junior I was very good at getting to 50 but then I’d have to retire. So I made sure I had a good time of it – normally by taking a liking to one bowler and trying to blast him out of the park one too many times … or until they hauled me off."Back then, Symonds says he was "aggressive to the point of danger … even self destruction". Ten years later, if you were to have asked cricket fans what they thought of Andrew Symonds’ approach to the game, they’d have probably said the exact same thing. And the man himself would agree wholeheartedly. "I’ve spent the bulk of my career trying to entertain rather than maintain, and too many times it’s cost me my spot in the side. I found myself doing stupid things and throwing myself on a sword when I really didn’t have to."Mostly, I’ve been trying too hard. Now I know that doesn’t work for me. I tighten right up and end up getting out in an uncanny way. But there have been other times where I just haven’t known how to go about it. That’s not through lack of trying or ability it’s just that I didn’t have the mindset I have now where I walk out there with a plan."See, back then I didn’t think a great deal about what I was trying to achieve or what the team needed. I’d just look at the scoreboard, see we needed 270-odd and I’d try and get `em as quick as I could. What I should’ve been doing was playing it smart, working out what bowlers were going to be easiest to score off at which stage of the innings … but that’s something I’ve only been realising the last couple of years."As Symonds attests, it’s been a different man wearing the trademark zinced-up lips these past couple of summers. The change can be dated back to those dark days of 2002 when his days as a cricketer looked done and dusted. "Maybe I was depressed. Maybe I was cracking up. All I knew was that I wasn’t good enough to cut it at the top level. And that it was now or never. So I made the call …"Symonds rang Wayne Bennett, mastermind coach and guru behind the Brisbane Broncos, and a man widely renowned as one of the deepest thinkers in sport."I just poured it all out to him," Symonds says. "I told him how I was feeling, that I’d lost my drive and my direction and that my confidence had taken a battering and that more and more I wasn’t being fulfilled by cricket anymore and that now I was thinking of trying something else – footy."Wayne didn’t bat an eyelid. He said, ‘Are you sure? It’s a serious step’. I told him I was deadly serious. ‘Then I’ll help and support you if I can,’ he said. Obviously his biggest issues were my ball skills and my ability to withstand tackling but he was definitely interested. He could see the passion was there."Symonds says that passion stemmed largely from his fervent desire to play State of Origin football. "On game night I’d be so pumped up I’d almost feel I was out there," he admits. "I was getting way too far ahead of myself but that’s what was driving me, what I wanted more than anything: to achieve that pinnacle of Queensland sport and run out onto Lang Park wearing that maroon jumper."But as powerful a motivating force as his passion for league was his disillusionment with cricket. "It wasn’t as though I was rolling out of bed thinking `Aw shit, not cricket again’. I think it was more that I was so disappointed in myself. I felt I was shaming the people I represented – my parents, my team-mates, everyone. Deep down I knew I wasn’t doing what was required of me. I wasn’t contributing as much or as often as I could and I wasn’t repaying the faith so many people had shown in me over the years."The lowest of the low points was when I was about to be axed from the Queensland side," admits Symonds. "By now fear had destroyed my confidence and totally messed up my state of mind. I really thought I was GONE. As it turned out I went out onto the Gabba and got an 80-odd or a ton that day and then batted really well for the rest of the season. But I think it was that fear of losing something so dear to me, something I’d dreamed of since I was a kid and seeing that slipping away – that turned it all around for me."That and Queensland Bulls team-mate Matt Hayden. "Matty gave me the belief and the strength to believe that success was simple. The way he explained it, cricket was all about training hard and then, away from the game, relaxing totally … that and hitting thousands and thousands of balls day in, day out."Of course, being with Hayden when their fishing boat was capsized by a freak wave and then swimming through shark-infested waters while oozing tuna oil and bait-stink, fighting a wicked tide and dragging their unfit, half-dead mate along arm-in-arm for about 900 agonising metres does tend to strengthen the bonds of friendship too. But that’s another story.Fact is, the REAL making of Andrew Symonds wasn’t in the mind. It was in the middle. The middle of the Wanderers Stadium in South Africa on February 11, 2003 to be exact – the most fear-inducing arena in the cricket world and, on that day, the biggest stage in the game. It was there the 27-year-old Symonds found himself walking to the wicket to the catcalls of 25,000 fans who knew his career, his reputation and the fate of his entire team was about to be decided. The Hour had arrived.That Symonds was even there that day is, as he calls it, "pure fluke". But thanks to "a bit of help from the captain and the coach" the wretchedly out-of-form all-rounder whose summer had rated a 3/10 from Inside Edge the month previous had defied all the odds and somehow cracked the squad for the 2003 World Cup."I don’t think it’d be understating things to say that (Buchanan and Ponting) saved my career," says Symonds, still shaking his head. "All I know is that I was standing out in the middle of the MCG training with Australia A when Allan Border read my name and Ian Harvey’s as part of the squad. I was gobsmacked. I had blokes slapping me on the back and shaking my hand but I was totally numb. I felt like I had a spot I didn’t deserve. I felt bad, sick, most of all, guilty. I couldn’t stop thinking: How am I going to the World Cup? I swallowed my pride at the time but the truth was I felt worse than the blokes who’d missed out."But it was done. And so the squad convened, trained "like dogs", jetted out for South Africa. Then, on match eve, the Shane Warne drug scandal broke and everything went haywire. Suddenly, Symonds, the man who shouldn’t even be at the tournament was in the starting side. Moreover, he was walking out with his team in crisis after a Pakistan blitzkrieg had shattered the star-studded Australian top-order to the tune of 4-86."It’s all a bit of a blur to be honest," recalls Symonds. "I do remember that I’d never seen a more nervous Australian dressing room. Normally there’s a few jokes, a bit of talk, but that day blokes were toey as all hell and it was eerie quiet. And then one minute I was sitting there with t-shirt and thongs on, and the next I was diving around looking for my gloves and thigh pad because Wasim Akram was going through us."I was nervous early, no doubt. I played and missed, sparred at a few. It was scratchy stuff. Then I got a four away and settled a bit. Punter kept coming down and whether I’d air-swung or hit a boundary he’d say `Next ball! Next ball!’ And so I found myself watching that ball closer than I ever had before in my life – and since! I swear I could see the stitches as it came toward me I was so zoned in and lined up."When I hit 50 my confidence really grew. My feet were moving and the ball was going into the gaps and hitting the fence hard. Then, when I was about 85, the scoreboard conked out. I hit a couple more fours and thought `Geez, I must be close here’ and then I got one between the two point fielders and that’s when I heard Gilly scream. Even from the middle I heard it, clear as day. I looked up and the boys were going beserk."From there, it was like a dream. I felt free as a bird and I just kept trying to hit sixes. Mostly they were fours but there was one shot I’ll always relish – hitting the great Wasim Akram over mid-on for six. That was when I really knew I was having a good day." ("A good day" – it’s the same way Symonds described his world record six-a-thon for Gloucestershire v Glamorgan at Abergavenny in 1995 where he scythed 16 sixes for 254 and then followed it by hitting another ton in the second dig which included another four sixes.)As he left the field of Wanderers with 143 from 125 balls, his first one-day century notched, one of the great World Cup innings etched forever in the stone of the press the next day, his team sitting supreme at 8-310, Andrew Symonds was reborn."The relief and the excitement on the boys’ faces … well, that image will stay with me forever. It wasn’t just elation we were all feeling it was the feeling that comes with being in a hopeless situation and getting ourselves out of it to the point where we shouldn’t lose the game. (They won by 82 runs and went on to win the World Cup)."But for me, the best feeling was the feeling of payback for Mum and Dad and all the hours in the nets and at games and carnivals and all the sweat they invested in me. I like to think that after all the promise, all the late development and so on, that century was their payback."Since that historic day, everything’s come up roses. Last year Symonds even achieved another of his life goals when he donned the baggy green as part of the touring Australian XI that took the series v Sri Lanka 3-0. And although his Test stats aren’t earth-shattering – 53 runs at 13.25 and one wicket at 85 – he’s working on fixing that.Older, wiser, wilier than the wild pigs he hunts, Symonds knows what he has to do. He’s aiming to score big hundreds this summer – 150-pluses, and he’s also toiling diligently away with ex-Test tweakers Colin Miller and Greg Matthews and Ashley Mallett on the spin bowling in which Ponting says there’s so much promise.Hell, he’s even sworn an oath to cut down on the partying that has got him into strife in the past and phase out his habit of showing up for contract negotiations with Cricket Australia in thongs, cowboy hat and carrying his crab pots. Even the smoking 2 pound 9 ounce bat he wields is a smarter sword these days. "No more too much, too soon," he smiles. "These days I’m playing it cool for the first 20 balls and waiting for the runs to flow. And, when I feel bogged down and I get that urge to smash a four or six, I’m gonna stay cool, have faith in the bloke at the other end and slowly build momentum … then I’ll explode!"As for that "innings of a lifetime" at the World Cup 2003, Symonds has never seen it. "Maybe I’ll roll the tape before I finish playing but right now I reckon maybe I’ll wait until after I retire. Then again, perhaps in a dark moment I’ll need to take a look …"