Andrew Symonds – the Queensland larrikin known as Roy with explosive batting

Andrew Symonds was a big-hitting all-rounder whose “larrikin” personality endeared him to both team-mates and cricket fans.

A prodigious talent who learned to harness his natural instincts on the pitch, but at times struggled to do so off it, he won admirers around the world for his explosive batting and inspirational fielding.

Maverick all-rounder Symonds, who has died in a car crash in North Queensland at the age of 46, cut an instantly recognisable figure in his trademark dreadlocks until he shaved them off for charity in 2009.

A country boy whose love of fishing at one point cost him his place in the Australia team, he could and did turn matches with a nonchalant approach which was little short of spectacular when it came off.

Born in Birmingham, England, in June 1975 to Afro-Caribbean and European parents, he was adopted as a baby by schoolteachers Ken and Barbara Symonds and the family emigrated to Australia soon afterwards, initially settling in Victoria before moving to Far North Queensland.

He learned his early cricket playing with his father after school and having progressed swiftly through the junior ranks, made his debut for Queensland as a teenager in 1994.

He became the state side’s youngest centurion with a brilliant 108 not out at Toowoomba against an England attack featuring Angus Fraser, Devon Malcolm and Phil Tufnell during the 1994-95 Ashes tour.

His English heritage and UK passport – Symonds was repeatedly quizzed as to his allegiance, but insisted he was Australian through and through – allowed Gloucestershire to sign him as a non-overseas player.

Nicknamed “Roy” – he always believed after former Brisbane Bullets basketball star Leroy Loggins, to whom he was said to have borne a resemblance – he