Cricket legend Andrew Symonds looks back on his remarkable career | 60 Minutes Australia

for better or worse cricket used to be a gentleman's game you could argue those days are long gone thanks partly to the antics of players like andrew simons on the pitch the bloke they call roy is great swashbuckling all rounder off the pitch it's another story he's lurched from one drunken crisis to another he's dismayed his fans and let down his teammates then he really blew it was sacked and sent home from london in disgrace finally though simon's may have got the message for the first time he tells of his spectacular fall from grace and the woman who tried to save him rex get in here i'm heading into the wild with the wild man of australian cricket what could we expect to catch flathead here we get some quite big fish up here get them up happy this is andrew simons out in his element nothing but his boat and fishing rods girlfriend katie and their dogs rex and barney poking around in the backwaters on the queensland gold coast how often would you come out here fishing now i come out most days every day so far the sad fact is instead of casting a line round here simons should still be on tour in britain with the australian cricket team but his career is in tatters sent home in disgrace because he simply couldn't control his drinking what would you rather be doing on a ashes tour in london at the moment or sitting out here [Music] good question um no i'm happy here now it's a long way from lords isn't it it is a very long way it was the conclusion to an unfolding public humiliation the train wreck we watched in despair hoping his ultimate downfall would never come but always suspecting here we go it was inevitable he's got one you know i'm not saying i'm perfect but i don't i'm not sitting out looking for trouble anymore well sometimes he actually tries to stay out of trouble he just kind of falls into it you obviously love him but why does andrew deserve public support he's your typical australian he really is he loves he loves his his mates he loves qriket he loves a footy and he's not a bad bloke he's actually a really good person and i promise anyone who actually knows andrew would also fall in love with him you can't help it he's got protection and the crowd certainly couldn't help but love the flamboyant all-rounder they called raw but now he's out booted off the australian team forever after years of bad behavior one drinking session too many proved to be the final straw tonight for the first time since his sacking simon's explains himself and his battle with the bottle i'm not proud of the times i've drunk too much and been rude to someone or broken team rules it's unacceptable now i'm out of that environment and that won't happen anymore for those people in that team and for me andrew can you understand though how people can think hang on he's a very highly paid professional sportsman doing a job that most people would love all he had to do was behave normally yeah but liam what's normally well normal is not trying to punch somebody out in a nightclub normal is not having 38 beers when you can have two i mean all you had to do was behave yourself and i struggled to understand why you just couldn't do that yeah well mate i did that most of the time but those times i know i know i've misbehaved and i've acted poorly and irresponsibly and drunk and behaviour is not acceptable almost since the start of his international career simon's was the bad boy of the australian team repeatedly missing training ignoring team meetings turning up for games hung over and brawling in bars all of it fueled by alcohol now even simon's has to admit he's got a problem i drink too much too fast too quickly how much is too much well everyone's tolerance is different i don't think that's the issue i admit that to pass too much became not too good to be around aggressive when you say you've got a problem with alcohol yeah are you an alcoholic no i'm not an alcoholic i'm being diagnosed as a binge drinker you're a binge drinker yep what does that mean for you i'd go out and drink hard all in one hit two pass too much and that's why you did things like sleep in and miss the team bus yeah and your teammates would know that and they'd know that you'd let them down yep i've let them down a number of times i had to front up and apologize to him a number of times embarrassing difficult awkward situation not ideal a lot of people will sit at home and think what an incredible waste can you understand that yeah i can yeah i can because i know how desperately i wanted to play for australia it was a boyhood dream born in britain adopted as a young baby and raised in far north queensland simon's finally got to wear the baggy green at the relatively late age of 28 it was a feeling of relief and joy and excitement all rolled into one because i mean you a lot goes into getting one and playing for australia were you very conscious of the fact the dream had come true oh definitely um still to this day i realize how lucky i am oh deary me get those excavators onto this part of the course as well he may no longer be playing in the australian team but simon's is still the fierce competitor that got him there oh i've done that even if it's only a social round.