Michael Clarke has revealed his pain at the breakdown of his friendship with former Australian teammate Andrew Symonds.
In his autobiography, released on Tuesday, the ex-Test captain details his falling out with the all-rounder following his rise to the vice-captaincy and the infamous episode when Symonds was sent home from a one-day series against Bangladesh in Darwin in 2008 after going fishing instead of attending a team meeting.
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Clarke: I don't apologise for my decisions
Michael Clarke has admitted at the launch of his autobiography that while he may have been able to do some things differently during his career, he doesn't apologise for his decisions.
Despite his regret at the lost bond Clarke is unapologetic for placing the team first in agreeing with captain Ricky Ponting, absent from the series due to wrist surgery, about disciplinary action against Symonds. Â
"Some former teammates will take his side, and feed his conviction that I let him down and put ambition ahead of mateship," Clarke writes in My Story.Â
"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."
Symonds' international career fizzled out the following year and his relationship with Clarke never recovered. But, according to Clarke, the all-rounder's resentment towards him stretched back further than Darwin and may have been linked to the Queenslander's own surprising ambitions to lead Australia.
Clarke writes: "During the West Indies trip [in 2008], Symmo has said something that surprises me: that he would like, one day, to be considered for the Australian captaincy. That is the first I knew of it, but I can understand. He has great leadership qualities and a cricket brain as good as anyone's. I sense that the issue is driving a bit of a wedge between him and me.
"From Symmo's point of view, his knockabout mate, his drinking and fishing buddy, is being groomed for the captaincy and getting all the royal treatment from the hierarchy, whereas he is being dealt a rough hand. We're soul brothers, and it doesn't seem fair to him that I am the golden boy while he is the outcast."
![Happier times: Michael Clarke and Andrew Symonds with the World Cup trophy after the 2007 final in Barbados.](/web/20161018191829im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/l/3/7/k/k/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gs513d.png/1476814104109.jpg)
At one point, Symonds pours a glass of wine over Clarke's head at a restaurant in Barbados in the presence of Brian Lara.
Clarke says that losing the friendship of Symonds "kills me".Â
"Ever since Warney's retirement in 2007, Symmo has been my best friend in the Australian team and my favourite cricketer to play with," Clarke writes.
"After he is sent home from Darwin, I try to catch up with him and make amends and rebuild the friendship. I continue this effort on and off for years and we play together again, but it's never the same.
"When I become captain, I will be determined to do things a better way. It will cost me other friendships. None will leave as much pain as the one I lost with Andrew Symonds."
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