Cricket Australia's role in Symonds saga

For many Australians, cricket's enfant terrible Andrew Symonds had to go.

The prodigiously-talented allrounder was given countless chances, yet blew them all, leaving officials and teammates with no option but to cut him adrift.

Symonds has been likened to a fish out of water. He simply could not countenance fitting into a politically-correct team environment and the rules he had to obey.

He turned to the booze to help escape his disillusionment with cricket and the rest, as they say, is history.

But what about Cricket Australia's role in the whole, sorry mess?

There is widespread opinion in Australia that feckless officials let Symonds get away with far too much for far too long.

The origins go back four years ago when Symonds turned up drunk on the morning of Australia's one-day international with Bangladesh in Cardiff.

He was immediately stood down and Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland told him that he would have his contract torn up if there was a repeat of his behaviour.

As one well-connected cricket writer succinctly put it: "Yet he did - at least four times - and until now his contract remained intact."

Symonds continued to embarrass his skipper Ricky Ponting, teammates and CA officials with his recidivist actions over the ensuing years.

And each time CA and the selectors found a way to bring him back into the fold, albeit not for this year's Ashes Test series in England.

CA ordered him to undergo counselling and even sessions on the psychologist's couch to 'rehabilitate' the dysfunctional cricketer.

Yet after all the counselling and belief that Symonds was better for it, he again self-destructed in the days before the World Twenty20 tournament in England this month and was ordered home.

There were reports out of his hometown of Brisbane that last summer Symonds was in no mental shape for a recall to international cricket.

He and his family reportedly lost money in personal investments and he had fallen out of love with cricket, yet selectors still included him in their team for the world Twenty20.

It came no big surprise to those who knew him that it would once again ended in tears.

Former Queensland teammate and Test wicketkeeper Ian Healy senses that Symonds just wants out.

"He might just be sick (of it). He's just cooked and tired of cricket and sort of wants to be dropped," Healy said on radio last week.

"I'm not sure whether Symmo wants to play cricket or be bound by contracts or be bound by the Cricket Australia structure.

"I sense that he might be seeking the freedom that Indian Premier League and maybe an English county stint might offer him.

"It's an ongoing issue I imagine, alcohol, and the ability to say when you've had enough. He hasn't mastered it yet."

There is also a delicious irony in CA cracking down on Symonds's alcohol-related issues.

Many fans have been quick to label CA hypocritical, given that the organisation has a brewer as its major sponsor.

There were news photos of captain Ricky Ponting at his London press conference last week to give his views about Symonds, while wearing a sponsor's cap.

The brewer's logo will be festooned on the shirts and training gear of Ponting and his players throughout the Twenty20 World Cup, five-Test Ashes series and one-day matches in England.

Australian cricket is redolent with the folklore of heavy drinking.

Former Test batsman and current Test selector David Boon gained notoriety for consuming 52 cans of beer on a flight from Sydney to London before the 1989 Ashes tour, eclipsing a previous 'record' of 45 established by former Test wicketkeeper Rod Marsh.

Symonds turns 34 this week and says he had "a fair bit to consider" amid speculation that he will pull the pin on his international cricket career and concentrate on the lucrative IPL.