Vale Andrew Symonds

[Ford Fairlane]

Australian cricket great Andrew Symonds has died following a single-car accident outside Townsville on Saturday night.

Symonds, who was a cult hero during the peak of his international playing career and one of the most skilled allrounders Australian cricket has seen, was 46.

 

[DaTBird187]

How awful.

 

[sobrave]

Not a good year for Aussie cricketers

 

[Ford Fairlane]

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Shocked when I saw the red breaking news line at the bottom of ABC News' screen when i turned on the TV at 8.30 this morning.

46 is too young to die, especially for someone as healthy as Roy.

Think it was Malcolm Conn who said this morning, the most athletically gifted Australian cricketer he has ever seen.

Great fieldsmen, bloody good ODI and T20 player with attacking batting and decent spinners, and probably never saw the best of him for long enough at test level.

 

[raptalia]

The great thing about Andrew Symonds is that he was born in Birmingham in England to a West Indian mother and as such was eligible to play for England. The Poms chased him as a teenager but he shunned their advances and decided to play for Australia, the country he called home. Andrew Symonds was adopted at birth and bought to Australia when he was 3 months old.

Andrew Symonds was one of the few genuine all rounders to have played Test and ODI cricket for Australia in recent years. He was also a bit of a rebel at times and copped a couple of suspensions in his career. He would have won an Allan Border Medal but for suspension and would have played more Test cricket had he not fallen foul of the establishment.

A real talent and an entertainer he will be sadly missed.

RIP Roy.

 

[Festerz]

A beast of a man with a passion for the game. He was doing a physio session next to me at the Memorial Drive gym years ago and the flexibility he had for a man of his size was awesome. At the peak of his career his commitment was never in doubt. Overcoming the racial taunts of overseas crowds and his commitment to a sense of fair play showed he had an inner strength beyond most as well.

Loved his brief life to the fullest.

But deeply, deeply annoyed that Channel 7 chose to publicly reveal private police comments on his condition immediately after they attended the accident.