Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke are the two big stars of Australian cricket. Both of them served their country with full dedication. Symonds, in his peak, was a destructive batsman and a handy bowler in white-ball cricket. Clarke, on the other hand, was a technically sound batsman who got lots of success in Test Cricket and won ODI World Cup as captain in 2015.

Recently, Symonds talked about his fallout with Clarke in a podcast with pacer Brett Lee. Symonds claims that money could have played a part in his spoiled relationship with Clarke. In the IPL 2008 auction, Symonds was bought for a mammoth price of INR 5.4 crores by Deccan Chargers. He was the second-most expensive cricketer at the auction.

“Matthew Hayden said to me – when the IPL started, I got a pretty penny to go and play in the IPL — he identified it as there was a bit of jealousy that potentially came into the relationship there. Money does funny things. It’s a good thing but it can be a poison and I reckon it may have poisoned our relationship.” said Symonds.

Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke made their debut for Australia in 2004. In the initial years both of them were very good friends. Symonds said that we had become friends while playing together. When Clarke came into the team, I used to bat with him and also took care of him in the team. Because of this, a bond was formed between us.

Caribbean 2008 – The start of the rift between Symonds and Clarke

Symonds also claimed that the WI tour in 2008 was the starting point of the rift between both of them when Michael Clarke called him a selfish player. On several occasions Clarke has criticised Symonds for being an undisciplined player and human being.

“I threw a drink on him. He didn’t tell me to go to bed, he said something else but I threw a drink on him and what he said to me put me into a rage. Our friendship was destroyed in that moment. He’d said to me, not in these words, but he’d suggested I was a selfish player and a selfish person. The one thing I don’t consider myself to be is that and that really annoyed me.” added Symonds in his podcast with Brett Lee.

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