Unknown to me, he’s already in trouble. Three hours ago, at about 7 am, he waltzed in from the street to the hotel dining room and ate some breakfast in front of John Buchanan – before coming up and passing out.
By getting Symmo out of bed, I don’t know if I’ve done him a favour or not. Maybe if I’d left him sleeping, a doctor could have come in and said he had the ‘flu’. Instead, I hustle him onto the bus, saying, ‘Just keep a low profile, don’t say anything, and stay away from everyone else.’
That’s no good either. He’s raucous on the bus, slapping Brad Hogg full-strength on the face as he walks past him. Hoggy directs a remark at Symmo, who can’t reply coherently. Some of us call him ‘Barry Bronco’ when he’s like this, and he’s in full Barry Bronco mode now. Then, during warm-ups at Sophia Gardens, he leans against a wheelie bin to do his leg-swings and brings it tumbling down. Punter comes to me and says, ‘What the f— is going on with Symmo?’
‘What are you talking about?’ I say, playing dumb.
‘You know exactly what I’m talking about. Is he pissed?’
‘Um, I think he’s just tired.’
All hell breaks loose, with Punter and John Buchanan asking him straight-up what time he got in last night and if he’s still drunk. Symmo buries himself deeper by saying he’s played in this condition plenty of times before. He is ruled out with a ‘mystery illness’ before the start of play, which turns into a second disaster when the management is caught out fudging the truth. And then, as if it’s not bad enough already, we lose to Bangladesh, then ranked 11th in the world in ODIs.
Over the next day, it looks like Symmo will be sent home. The day after the match, everyone has a meeting and the team is split down the middle. The leaders, Punter and Gilly, are furious, while the younger blokes reckon a fine, administered in-house, should be enough. Symmo is pretty sheepish by now. What I know about him is that he has done this before, and once he’s settled down he understands how much he’s let everybody down, and will gather himself up and produce incredible performances on the field.
He’s not the only one who’s stayed out too late. He’s looked after me as often as I’ve looked after him. In the meeting, I stand up and say, ‘It’s my fault. I could see what was going to happen and I came back to the hotel. I should have dragged Symmo with me. I think he’s had a harsh enough penalty being left out of the team. If you send him home, you might as well send me home too.’
I am too young to know whether what I’ve done is right or wrong, stupid or courageous. It is simply that he’s my mate and if he is going down, I’ll go down with him. He would do the same for me. Symmo comes up later and thanks me, though he admits that it wasn’t my fault. There was no stopping him that night.
I don’t know if my speaking up for him has had any effect, but the hierarchy settles on a fine and a two-match ban. Symmo comes back with a blast, predictably, scoring 73 and 74 against England and taking five for 18 against Bangladesh. He goes off to county cricket while the Test team, which he is not in, gets together for the Ashes tour. We stay in contact for the whole time in England, and our friendship is secure. He knows I have his back.
Between the two of us, this is how things continue over the next two years. We go to South Africa in early 2006, and amid some enjoyable one-day cricket together I have to save Symmo’s skin again, when, in a Cape Town nightclub, he begins eyeballing the Springbok rugby prop Ollie le Roux and asks him to settle the matter in the old-fashioned way.
‘Come on outside,’ Symmo says.
‘No problem, let’s go,’ says big Ollie.
They actually lock arms. Ollie is going to eat Symmo alive. Seeing the trouble building, I rush in, jump up and literally sit myself on their locked arms.
‘Come on, you two, you’re not going anywhere,’ I squeak, feeling like either of them could pick me up and crush me in his fist. But I convince Symmo that a late-night punch-up on tour may not be the best way to follow up what happened in Cardiff, and before we know it he and Ollie are having a beer and swapping stories like old mates.
During that tour, Symmo and I cook up a plan for an off-season trip: we’re going to hire a Winnebago to drive from Sydney to Brisbane, and then fly to Rockhampton, where he’s going to take me out bush for some fishing and hunting. I’m not a rough-camping type, so I organise the best Winnebago you’ve ever seen, big enough to sleep eight people and with all the mod cons. We drive up the coast slowly, getting lost more often than not, and drop in on my dad’s mother and stepfather in Coffs Harbour. We stay in caravan parks and use their amenities blocks. People say, ‘There’s Michael Clarke and Andrew Symonds!’ Others say, ‘No it’s not, they wouldn’t be in a caravan park.’
Symmo teaches me how to fish, and he has indoctrinated me in country-boy ways by the time we fly up to Ingham in north Queensland to stay with his mate Yogi and his family. We fly in a helicopter from there to Esmeralda Station in the Gulf of Carpentaria, where Symmo’s friend Mick is the manager. We go out chasing bulls, and although Symmo’s pig-hunting plans are spoilt by rain, I manage to catch my first barramundi. There are crocodiles everywhere. I’ve fished in the bay around Cronulla, but that’s no preparation for this. When the helicopter lands on the riverbank, crocodiles scatter everywhere. I say, ‘No way, boys, we’re not going here.’ But off we go. Symmo fixes my line, puts the lures on, and I don’t have to do anything. I cast away, get a barramundi on, and I’m winding it in when Yogi jumps into the water to get my fish in. Thinking of the crocodiles, I yell: ‘I don’t need the fish that bad!’
It’s one of the best things I’ve done in my life, a special trip that cements our friendship, which goes well beyond the boundaries of the cricket field.
Some of our best moments in that period are on the field – the 2006–07 Ashes whitewash, the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies, and winning the Border–Gavaskar Trophy in Australia. When I find out about Dad’s cancer, Symmo is the one teammate I confide in. My friendship with him is also part of the controversy in the Test match in Sydney in that Border–Gavaskar series.
Having won the first Test match in Melbourne, we go to Sydney with the opportunity to win the trophy. We are also on the brink of a record-equalling 16 Test match wins in a row, quite a comeback after losing the Ashes two years ago. On the first morning, our top order collapses, but Symmo saves the innings with a fantastic unbeaten 162. Assisted by Brad Hogg and Brett Lee, Symmo gets the Australian score from six for 134 to all out 463, an addition of 329 runs for the last four wickets. That would be demoralising enough for the Indians, even if they weren’t sure that Symmo had been out nicking early in his innings.
Hundreds by V.V.S. Laxman and Sachin Tendulkar get India past our total, but Matty Hayden and Mike Hussey reply with big scores to enable Punter to declare just before lunch on the last day. We have 72 overs to bowl India out and they need to score 333 runs to win.
In many ways, it’s one of my favourite Test matches. All through the last day, I’m standing beside Ricky in slips, bugging him. ‘Give me a bowl, give me a bowl!’ Out of the side of his mouth, he’s saying, ‘Shut up, shut up.’
I give credit to Ricky for sticking to his guns. In his view, bowlers are paid to bowl and batsmen are paid to bat. He places faith in the bowlers who he thinks will win us the game.
But I also give him credit for his flexibility. He could just say, You’re not bowling, piss off, but when there are only four overs to go, it looks like we’re not going to win. India are seven wickets down, with Anil Kumble and Harbhajan Singh, both capable lower-order batsmen, digging in for the past ten overs. Our main pace bowlers, Brett Lee, Mitchell Johnson and Stuart Clark, are spent. Symmo has bowled more than anyone, and Brad Hogg hasn’t taken a wicket.
As the shadows lengthen, Punter thinks, I’ve got to shut this kid up. He turns to me and says, ‘Okay, go and have a bowl.’
My self-confidence as a young man, with bat and ball, is a big part of why I made it to the highest level. I believe I can h
ave an impact on any game I am playing in. I love to field where the ball is going most, I love to open the batting in one-dayers and be in for all the overs, and whenever I have the ball in hand, I believe I can get these guys out.
I bowl one over to Kumble without any result, but at the other end Symmo manages to keep Kumble on strike, so I’m going to get a chance at Harbhajan. He’s a bit of a slogger, but in the last hour or so he’s been tempering his instincts. I toss up the first ball of my second over, and it bites in the crumbly wicket. Harbhajan pushes forward, and the ball clips the shoulder of his bat before carrying to Huss at slip.
Next ball, I push it in a bit faster to RP Singh. He’s caught on the crease, and when it hits him on the pad we all go up. A clear lbw.
Now, with the last man in, we are suddenly favourites to win. Ten balls to go, and I’ll get to bowl four of them. Punter brings everyone in around the bat. Ishant Sharma, who’s playing in his first Test match, is the unfortunate batsman. We can’t get going at first, because he’s brought out two right-hand gloves. The SCG crowd boos him, but I can understand. You can be so nervous in this situation that you could forget to bring out any gloves at all.
Finally he’s ready. I push through the first two balls, going for the lbw again, but they’re both down the leg side. I have two left. I float the next one a little slower. Ishant has no option but to defend and, in a carbon copy of the Harbhajan dismissal, edges it to Huss.
We go off our heads with delight and surprise, probably so elated that we don’t notice the Indian batsmen trudging off. Kumble will be unhappy that we didn’t immediately shake hands with him, and in his press conference later, he’ll accuse us of not playing in the spirit of the game.
From a personal point of view, I’m excited beyond belief, thrilled to have been able to come through in the dying moments. I love my bowling and think back to all those days as a kid when I was picked in teams for my pace, first, and then my spinners. For a batsman, sometimes there’s no greater delight than taking key wickets with the ball.
But within minutes of the match ending, the fun comes to a shuddering halt.
My role in ‘Monkeygate’ is only on the fringe, but it still sours what should have been a great memory. On the fifth night of the match, several of us have to attend a tribunal hearing until the early hours.
Punter has made a racial abuse complaint against Harbhajan, on account of words he spoke to Symmo on day three of the match. I had heard in Sydney what I believed to be a racial sledge. In a seven-hour hearing before ICC match referee Mike Procter, I am one of the witnesses, along with Punter, Symmo, Matty Hayden, Gilly, the umpires, Harbhajan, and his batting partner at the time of the incident, Sachin Tendulkar.
At the end, Procter gives Harbhajan a three-match ban for racial abuse, which sets off an uproar from India and also from sections of the Australian cricket community.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) threaten to call off the tour, and Cricket Australia is more keen to broker a compromise than to defend their players’ integrity. Harbhajan ends up with a reduced punishment for ‘verbal abuse’, and we are all left with the feeling that our own board is more interested in appeasing India than in any principles or loyalty.
I probably don’t hold as strident a view as others. I know Ricky is filthy about being let down by Cricket Australia, and many in the team feel a sense of betrayal by our employers. I thought CA should have had the courage to say to Ricky and Symmo, ‘We’re sorry, but we’re not going to fight India. We can’t win. So let it go.’ That’s what should have happened. There was no great principle of racism at stake. I was never sure that Symmo felt deeply offended by what Harbhajan said, and he said as much in his autobiography. If he had been offended? Different story. But he wasn’t, so he was pursuing it for different reasons than the racial abuse law was set up for.
After the first hearing, I go to Symmo and say, ‘Mate, you haven’t been offended by this at all. This doesn’t bother you.’
He says, ‘But I’m sick and tired of them getting away with it. We never get away with anything, but they do.’
I say, ‘If you push this, it’s going to be massive.’
Whether my involvement helps or not, I don’t know. I support him and tell the truth under oath about what I heard. But it’s never been about racism. Symmo was frustrated with a situation where we are always portrayed as the bad guys. I agree with that, but taking it up in this manner is never going to win us any satisfaction. When it comes to suffering from racism in historic terms, we’re not going to be able to grab the high ground from India. So it would have been best to cop it and move on, rather than stage a fight we were never going to win.
The whole business changes Symmo. Ricky has written that Symmo was ‘gone from this moment’ as a committed Test cricketer. Maybe he was. I didn’t realise it yet, and wanted our relationship to stay as it always had been. But in the next 12 months, Symmo would turn on me.
Four months after that Sydney Test match, we are in the West Indies for a three-Test series followed by five one-dayers. I miss the First Test, as I stay in Sydney to grieve with Lara, whose father has just died of cancer. My dad is also having further cancer treatment. When I get to the Caribbean, the boys welcome me back warmly, and I put my head down in the Second Test match with 110 in the first innings, motivated in part to thank the team for their loyalty.
Throughout my career, I prioritise my family. Sometimes I cop some stick for putting my personal issues first, but I do what I believe is the right thing. The culture of the Australian cricket team changes during the span of my career. By the end of my playing days, if a cricketer’s child is being born, 99 per cent of them will have permission to leave the team, and will want to leave the team, to be with their wife or partner. In past generations, it was the opposite: 99 per cent of cricketers would not have left their team to be at home for the birth of their child. This cultural change is progress. Your family are with you for life, and it is right for them to be placed ahead of cricket at these important moments – especially when, in most of our cases, our families have made so many sacrifices so that we can place cricket first.
My decision to miss that Test match in the West Indies wasn’t an emotional reaction. If I had my time again, in the calm of hindsight, I would make exactly the same decision.
We win the Third Test in Barbados to seal the series 2–0. Before that match, we get a few days off, and one night I get together with Brian Lara for a quiet drink. Brian has always been generous with his time and advice for me, and we have enjoyed each other’s company whenever we’ve had the chance since that first meeting in Georgetown airport in 2003.
I know that Symmo has been a bit down since the Australian summer. He was the main victim of ‘Monkeygate’; he was the guy, even more than Punter, who felt he was hung out to dry by Cricket Australia. During the West Indies trip, Symmo has said something that surprises me: that he would like, one day, to be considered for the Australian captaincy. That is the first I knew of it, but I can understand. He has great leadership qualities and a cricket brain as good as anyone’s. He doesn’t like always being portrayed as the larrikin but he can’t seem to appreciate that it’s his own actions that have led to that portrayal. I sense that the issue is driving a bit of a wedge between him and me.
From Symmo’s point of view, his knockabout mate, his drinking and fishing buddy, is being groomed for the captaincy and getting all the royal treatment from the hierarchy, whereas he is being dealt a rough hand. We’re soul brothers, and it doesn’t seem fair to him that I am the golden boy while he is the outcast.
When he tells me about his ambition to lead, I do everything I can to stop him being pissed off with me. ‘I wasn’t made vice-captain by my dad,’ I say. ‘It’s not something I’ve gone after. They’ve given it to me. You’d make a great captain, Symmo, but what do you want me to do about it? You should go and talk to the selectors about it, throw your hat in the ring. I wouldn’t mind at all
.’
In the lead-up to the Barbados Test match, when I’m sitting in the restaurant with Brian Lara, Symmo comes in with his girlfriend. They have been out for lunch, which turns into dinner, which turns into after-dinner drinks. Symmo and his girlfriend join Brian and me, and although it’s obvious that Symmo has had more than a few, it’s all quite friendly at first. Brian mentions a funny incident in a game against Sri Lanka a few years ago, when Symmo hit the ball down the wicket, it smacked into my leg and rebounded in the air, and he was caught. As he walked off, he laughingly said to me, ‘You owe me a beer.’
We are laughing about it, but then suddenly something in Symmo’s brain snaps and he decides he’ll give me that drink now: he pours a glass of wine over my head. It’s a stunning moment. He’s frothing with anger, and Brian has to get between us before Symmo storms out.
I can’t figure out exactly what I’ve done. Maybe it’s all the circumstances around Symmo losing his love for playing cricket for Australia. I’m quite at home with the increased intensity and professional focus of the team environment now, and so it’s quite understandable that, as his mate for so long, Symmo should see me as a sell-out, someone who personifies all that he dislikes in the set-up.
But I don’t know for sure what he thinks. Despite my efforts to reconcile, he won’t talk to me again on the tour.
Brian Lara has told Ricky that if a player poured a drink over a West Indies vice-captain, he would not play for the team again. Ricky doesn’t do anything about it. It’s a month and a half after the West Indies tour when we gather again, for a mid-year series of one-day internationals in Darwin against Bangladesh. I’ve been trying to patch things up with Symmo, but he’s having none of it.
By the mid-year series, Ricky is recuperating from surgery on his wrist and I am captain. We have a lot of new young players, such as Shaun Marsh, James Hopes, David Hussey, Brett Geeves and Cameron White, and I make it clear that, as captain, I have to put the responsibilities of the job ahead of personal friendships.
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