A player of 60s vintage who showed us what 2020s might be like

Symonds was a throwback to an age where the sport wasn’t an all-consuming task-master and accommodated a wider variety of temperaments

It is impossible to be objective about death. If it involves an accident that ends a sportsman’s life prematurely, you think about his family; then you ask, did he live up to potential? That question can seldom be answered in the positive, for it is human nature to believe that the next event will be the determining one, the next assignment will establish the legacy.

Those who play sport at the highest level are judged by performance and not on potential. Once a career is over, there is no room for could-have-beens. Whatever problems the late Shane Warne had outside the sport, he will always count as one of the all-time greats, his 708 Test wickets testimony to that. Did he live up to potential? It doesn’t matter. What we know is good enough to guarantee him a place among the finest.

Andrew Symonds was a cricketer of 1960s vintage who played in the 2000s and showed us what the 2020s might be like. He was a throwback to an age where the sport wasn’t an all-consuming task-master, and accommodated a wider variety of temperaments. But he played like a post-modern cricketer, with his big hitting and ability to throw down the stumps from any angle.

The fatal car accident also took away someone who lived life on his own terms, even if it meant a shorter career in cricket with unfulfilled promises. Former Aussie captain Mark Taylor said of Symonds: “He wanted to go out there and have fun and play the game he played as a kid. At times he got in trouble for not going to training or having a few too many beers but that is the way he lived his life…”

Did the ‘Monkeygate’ controversy (Symonds claimed India’s Harbhajan Singh had racially abused him during a Sydney Test) effectively finish his Australia career? His captain, Ricky Ponting thought so; Symonds felt let down by his cricket board which didn’t back him. But swings and roundabouts, a few seasons in the IPL made him millions.

Symonds was a great all-round fielder, one of the hardest hitting batsmen, and bowled both off spin and medium pace. He could have finished as one of Australia’s greatest all-rounders, to be spoken of in the same breath as Keith Miller, a similarly flamboyant character. But he didn’t fit in snugly in the uber-professional times he played in, making no secret of the fact that sometimes he would rather go fishing.

It made for a combination of man and player who was simultaneously both an anachronism and a herald of the future. The T20 revolution arrived towards the end of his career; a younger Symonds would have staked a claim to being among the finest in the format, his skills spread over a wider range than most.