Andrew Symonds (9 June 1975 – 14 May 2022) was an Australian international cricketer, who played all three formats as a batting all-rounder. Commonly nicknamed "Roy", he was a key member of two World Cup winning squads. Symonds played as a right-handed, middle order batsman and alternated between medium pace and off-spin bowling. He was also notable for his exceptional fielding skills. After mid-2008, Symonds spent significant time out of the team, due to disciplinary reasons, including alcohol. In June 2009, he was sent home from the 2009 World Twenty20, his third suspension, expulsion or exclusion from selection in the space of a year. His central contract was then withdrawn, and many cricket analysts speculated that the Australian administrators would no longer tolerate him, and that Symonds might announce his retirement. Symonds eventually retired from all forms of cricket in February 2012, to concentrate on his family life. In 2022, Symonds died in a single-vehicle car crash about outside Townsville, Queensland. He was 46. Early life One of Symonds' birth parents was of an Afro-Caribbean background, while the other was believed to be of Scandinavian descent. Symonds was adopted by parents Ken and Barbara at three months of age and they moved to Australia when he was a toddler. He had three siblings. His sister, Louise Symonds, who was also adopted, was a contestant on the Australian Gladiators television series in 2008. He spent the early part of his childhood in Charters Towers, northern Queensland, where his father taught at the private fee paying All Souls St Gabriels School, which Symonds attended. He showed sporting prowess from a very early age. "Dad was cricket mad. He’d throw balls to me five or six days a week, before school, after school. And we’d play all sorts of games inside the house with ping-pong balls and Christmas decorations." His early junior cricket was played in Townsville for the Wanderers club, father and son making the 270-kilometre return trip sometimes twice a week. In 1988, Symonds' father accepted a deputy headmaster role at All Saints Anglican School and the family subsequently relocated to the Gold Coast when Symonds was 12 years of age. He attended the school and continued his junior cricket at Palm Beach Currumbin. A few years later Symonds made his Queensland Premier Cricket debut for the Gold Coast Dolphins as a 15-year-old and hit a remarkable double century in his