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Andrew Symonds

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Stats Man

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I don't profess to know everything in this saga but would love to hear it.

How big a role did. the Sydney test and th eaftermath have on his demise & the demise of Aussie cricket?

I have always felt the way he was treated by the ACB was poor and unsupportive. To have him still in the Odi team in 2011 would have made a big difference.

What do you think...?
 
What CA and Sutherland did to him after the Sydney test was absolutely disgraceful, let him hang out to dry and make him seem like the villian after being racially abused by Harbahjan. But can't blame anyone but himself for what happened afterwards. Glad to see he has a commentary gig for a few games of the Ryobi cup.
 
He obviously wasn't very happy by the support given by Cricket Australia but they were in a terribly difficult position. Gideon Haigh and also Malcolm Speed's books are terribly interesting and give a candid view on the saga.
 

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The Sydney Test against India four years ago was a disgrace with few if any of it's participants and respective boards coming out with any semblance of credit.

The Indian side, a team stacked with large egos, who were not beyond some onfield chatter, felt that the Australian side, of whom similar accusations had been levelled, were on the way down and thus ripe for the pickings.

While this was not quite to be the case, players from both sides behaved petulantly towards the umpires, who didn't help their cause with some shocking decisions in the Australian first innings, (Symonds anyone?) and aggressively towards each other on the field. Coupled with the fact that the game was won at dusk on the final day, in such an outlandish manner of Michael Clarke cleaning up the tail in a couple of overs created a powder keg situation which with the intervention of the Keystone Kops style diplomacy of CA and the BCCI, inevitably exploded.

Nobody came out of the subsequent debacle well, including the media, and their near hysterical reaction and the game will be remembered as much for what happened after it, than what happened during it. Which a shame because it was a cracking game.
 
The Indians players involved, like Tendulkar, Kumble really damaged their legacies for anyone who follows the game.

Tendulkar changing his story was the act of a dog, have never had any respect for him after that point.
 
The thing that I don't get is: given all of the problems that were caused by horrific umpiring decisions in this game, why wouldn't the BCCI be the ones leading the charge for UDRS?
 
the collusion of our board with the indian board to hush proceedings and clear harbhajan should have led to outrage and forced resignations. absolute disgrace.

the fact it didn't and they were able to fly in the face of public opinion has in large measure resulted in many of the predicaments australian cricket faces today which at the end of the day stem from a culture of unaccountability and willful blindness to criticism and the mood of the cricketing public

hanging symonds out to dry when he had been subject to racial abuse, resulting in harbhajan being cleared by the ICC after he had been found guilty and banned 3 tests by the match referee. absolute disgrace.

thats when CA lost the public imo and ever since CA and the cricketing public have been on divergent paths with CA closing ranks, evolving a fortress mentality, becoming increasingly isolated from public opinion, increasingly immune to legitimate criticism, increasingly detached from reality and increasingly indophile

as for symonds, its a shame he took the path he did afterward, but my heart wouldn't be in representing an organisation of such low moral character as CA either if they had just turned their back on me and colluded with scumbags who had racially vilified me in the public arena
 
The decision got overturned because there was no conclusive evidence to suggest he called Symonds a big monkey, and it also wasn't deemed to be racist. However, appropriate added information was not conveyed to whoever made the final decision.
 
there were witness statements -eg- from haydos which were sufficient evidence for the initial ban. then CA colluded with BCCI and players were made to change their stories, including symonds and a joint version of events was issued by tendulkar, ponting, hayden and symonds basically saying nothing really happened

its obvious that haydos, who clearly heard it judging by the chatter on stump cam, and symonds were made to change their stories to save relations with india

Justice Hansen [who heard the ICC appeal] wrote in a letter to Speed after the 'monkeygate scandal': "Although both boards would deny it, BCCI and CA were having discussions behind the scenes to resolve matters.

"Indeed, they presented me with an agreed statement of facts (signed by Harbhajan, former Australian captain Ricky Ponting, Symonds, Michael Clarke, Matthew Hayden and Sachin Tendulkar) and a consent order that they expected me to rubber-stamp.

...their actions undermined the independence of the Code of Conduct Commissioner, were unbecoming, and in my view, contrary to the spirit of cricket," the letter of Hansen published in Speed's book said.

The letter of Hansen revealed the lengths CA went to preserve its relationship with the Board of Control for Cricket in India and, as Speed puts it, "the willingness of (India's) administrators to use their financial muscle when national pride is at stake"
Click to expand...

http://articles.economictimes.india...s/29396761_1_racial-row-malcolm-speed-cricket

without the retraction of the evidence (witness statements) engineered by the BCCI and CA the guilty finding and ban would've been upheld
 
The Fonz said:
The thing that I don't get is: given all of the problems that were caused by horrific umpiring decisions in this game, why wouldn't the BCCI be the ones leading the charge for UDRS?
Click to expand...

Because then if they lose they can't blame the umpires. Duhhhhhh
 

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In hindsight, it is clearly the jumping the shark moment of cricket australia.

Interesting that Symonds will be commentating on a few games, I heard Wendell Sailor on SEN the other week pumping up the celebrity apprentice and he mentioned that Symonds was up in Cairns and had cut himself off from a lot of people.
 
I'll never forget that hip and shoulder he put on that streaker at the Gabba... Symonds was a freak and played some of the best innings you will ever see. It is a shame it ended how it did and there is no doubt CA stuffed him about during the monkey drama..
 

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CA did the wrong thing by Symonds after Sydney, but Symonds by then had already caused a lot of problems for CA. The guy is a complex character who never really fitted in with the established heirachy.

Hearing that Symonds has cut himself off from a lot people doesn't surprise me, he played a sport that he was good at and made a lot of money doing so, but he was never the sort of bloke who wanted to stay inside the system or even the large sporting community for that mattter. You may well find that he now has a lifestyle he is happy with and no longer has to put up with the BS that came with being a sporting identity.
 

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