Andrew Symonds Discovers His Softer Side?

What on earth is going on in Australian cricket? Perhaps there’s a drawback to holding the champion position so long, when their best cricketers appear to suffer all sorts of mental breakdowns. First it was Shaun Tait, though that was not as big news because, deep down, we all know fast bowlers — especially ridiculously fast ones like Tait — are inherently crazy. 

But now, Symonds? And what’s this about a fishing trip? And him possibly not wanting to come back to cricket? Uncle J Rod, on one of his hi-tech podcasts, spent about 3 minutes repeating the “F” word, and then dwelling in some deep conspiracy theories (he smells an arrest). But it seems that, despite enjoying massive support from the public, Symonds does not have a similar status inside his own dressing room, from where all sorts of bad names have come out in the last week about him.

Not to take too much fun in another man’s misfortune, but this is a bit of fun for me. After years of acting so tough, so full of machiscmo and so full of sprouting “mental disintegration,” we have here a team of softies and stressed-out sportsmen after all. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, of course, but it’d be good for everyone, not least the Australians, if they admitted, just once, that they’d all prefer fishing to playing the game the way they do.

Of course, I’d rather watch a man fish for hours than Bangladesh play Australia in three ODIs. So what do I know?

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