Sydney: If Australia all-rounder Andrew Symonds never plays international cricket again, it will be a sad end to the career of a gifted player who never really fulfilled his true potential.
The 33-year-old's career, in the balance after a series of off-field incidents, was almost certainly ended when he was sent home from England on Thursday for breaching the Australian team's disciplinary rules on alcohol.
There was a sense of irony that Symonds, who was born in England but turned down the chance to play for his land of birth, should be ordered out of England back to Australia while he was trying to rebuild his career.
Symonds moved to Australia with his family before he was one year old and almost missed the chance to play international cricket after rejecting several offers to play for England.
A powerful hitter, he made his one-day international debut for Australia against Pakistan in 1998 but it was not until the 2003 World Cup that his career really took off. Shortly after Shane Warne was sent home for a doping offence, Symonds smashed 143 in the opening match against Pakistan to get his team out of trouble and set them on the road to winning the tournament.
Symonds was rewarded with his Test debut against Sri Lanka in 2004 but lost his place for the last match of the series. He regained his spot in 2005 and made a then career-best 72 against South Africa in Melbourne, opening his scoring with a six. But the first signs of trouble were just around the corner.
He was briefly dropped from the Australian one-day team touring England in 2005 when he turned up late for a match against Bangladesh still intoxicated following a boozy night.
He was recalled and scored a career-best 156 in a one-day international against New Zealand in December 2005 then 151 against Sri Lanka two months later after sharing a record 237-run partnership with Ricky Ponting.
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The Queenslander struggled on the 2006 test tour of South Africa and missed selection for the first two Ashes tests against England at the end of the year before he was called up for the third when Damien Martyn announced his retirement.
Symonds made the most of his recall by scoring his maiden test hundred in the fourth test at Melbourne, reaching triple figures with a huge six and finishing with 156. He won a second World Cup in the West Indies in 2007 and made an unbeaten 162 against India in Sydney in January 2008 before disciplinary problems really started to haunt him.
Senior players and team management voted to send him home from a one-day series in Darwin last year after he missed an important team meeting to go fishing.
Earlier this year, Symonds was fined for a drunken radio interview and was ordered to undergo counselling before being reconsidered for selection. He was left out of Australia's Ashes squad but the selectors threw him a lifeline when they picked him for the World Twenty20, only to send him home before the tournament began.
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