Andrew Symonds' staggering claim after falling out with Michael Clarke
Andrew Symonds has opened up on his falling out with once great mate Michael Clarke, revealing he thinks jealousy may have played a part in their fractured relationship.
Clarke and Symonds were once thick as thieves, with Clarke's career taking off around the time Symonds' was peaking.
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They played for Australia together and former a strong bond, however things quickly turned sour and they don't speak anymore.
Speaking on the 'Brett Lee Podcast' this week, Symonds opened up on their falling out and said he thinks Clarke may have been jealous of the money he was making in the IPL.
Symonds was the most expensive overseas player at the inaugural IPL auction after being picked up by Deccan Chargers for $1.8 million.
“We became close. When he (Clarke) came into the side I used to bat with him a lot,” Symonds told Lee.
“So when he came into the side I really looked after him. That built a bond.
“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 (with Clarke) 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.
“I’ve got enough respect for him to probably not go into detail about what was said.
”My friendship with him is no longer and I’m comfortable with that, but I’m not gonna sit here and start slinging mud.”
Symonds has previously criticised Clarke for not approaching him before airing some dirty laundry in his autobiography in 2015.
“Andrew Symonds went on TV to criticise my leadership. I’m sorry, but he is not a person to judge anyone on leadership,” Clarke wrote in his 2015 Ashes Diary.
“This is a guy who turned up drunk to play for his country. It’s pretty rich for him to be throwing rocks.”
Andrew Symonds and Michael Clarke in ugly falling out
Symonds was infamously sent home from a one-day tour for skipping a team meeting to go fishing, and also missed an ODI in 2005 when he was too drunk to play.
Clarke was filling in for Ricky Ponting as captain at the time, and Symonds felt let down that Clarke didn't support him more.
“Some former teammates will take his side, and feed his conviction that I let him down and put ambition ahead of mateship,” Clarke previously wrote.
“I would say that he let me down too - that if he had understood mateship as a two-way street, he would have seen that I had to do what was right for the whole team.”
Speaking on an episode of 'Cricket Legends' in 2018, Symonds admitted he threw a drink on Clarke during a tour of the West Indies.
“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,” Symonds said at the time.
“What he said to me was nowhere near accurate and that immediate point is where he lost me and I lost him.
“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.”
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