As tributes pour in for Australian cricket icon Andrew Symonds, close friend and former teammate Matthew Hayden says he will keep hold of a special message from the “bloody good bloke”, with whom he once saved a man’s life.
The cricket world is still in shock following the sudden death of Symonds at age 46. Symonds died in a car crash on Sunday.
One of the moments that defined Symonds’ cricket career was his maiden Test century at the MCG during the 2006-07 Ashes series.
He shared that moment with Hayden, as well as many others that formed a friendship full of adventures, but also mishaps.
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“Simmo once said to me, ‘If you can’t say it in three words Joe it’s not worth listening to’. Well Roy…… ‘Bloody good bloke’ sums you up,” Hayden wrote in a tribute on Instagram
“Make sure those XXXX bitters cans are nice and cold Albert for when next we sip.
“Broken heart. RIP Roy.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdk425MJKLw/
If you followed either’s career, you’d have learnt early they were both lovers of the outdoors, but in particular, boats and fishing.
On January 2, 2000, now a little more than 22 years ago, Hayden and Symonds found themselves in a situation that every fisherman would have nightmares about.
Not long before Symonds’ shock death, the former all-rounder re-told the story of the day he and Hayden saved friend Trent’s life after their boat flipped. They were left with no choice but to swim to shore against a current flowing in the opposite direction.
“We could see the beach and I knew I would make it and he (Hayden) knew that he’d make it,” Symonds recalled for Fox Sports’ Cricket Legends.
“He (Hayden) took off and just started swimming in and I’m whistling at him. He took a breath and must’ve heard me… I said, ‘Oi, we’ve got Trent here!’
“Trent was in shock. We had to really nurse him through this swim back to the beach, but the current was taking us out and we were trying to go in. We were working against nature.
“So we go for a little bit, then Trent would pull up and tread water and get his breath back… by about the third time, we took off to swim and Haydos grabbed him by the arm and said, ‘What do you reckon I just knock him out and we drag him in? This will be quicker.’
“I said, ‘That is a really bad idea’.
“We got under each arm and got him in those last couple hundred metres. He flopped on the beach, I had never seen a man like that, he was so relieved to be on dry land.
“Haydos reached into his togs and ripped out his sunglasses which he managed to grab off the dashboard before the boat went over.
“It was quite the morning that. It was a bit of a fright.”
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