Cricket Australia officials are facing the chastening fact that they are not able to handle cricket's wild children well, after troubled all rounder Andrew Symonds was relieved of his contract for breaking alcohol related rules during the T20 World Cup.

Australian cricket struggles to handle situations when a player's life is spinning out of control, as can be seen in the cases of Michael Slater's marriage breakdown, Shaun Tait's depression and, to a lesser extent, Brett Lee's marriage bust-up. Cricket Australia is trying to do its best, but somehow the system, although it's full of psychologists, strategists, scientists, and more coaches than you would find at your local bus depot, struggles to identify the root of the problem and fix it.

One fear is that the life of professional cricketers is becoming more removed from reality each year, the Daily Telegraph reports. Symonds can earn as much in four days in the Indian Premier League as Allan Border got for a full contract in his last year as Australian captain. Players are going from school to academies to full-time cricket contracts without ever knowing what it is like to work an eight-hour day as a teenager and be paid 14 dollars an hour.

Former Australian coach John Buchanan says: "We expect sportsmen to be role models but in a lot of cases their education and experiences in life are actually narrower than most normal people." Slater, at peace in a prosperous life that features jobs with Channel 9 and a radio show, has become the type of role model to which Symonds can aspire as he rebuilds his life after having his Cricket Australia contract torn up a week ago. Slater has proved that having a dramatically bad ending to your career does not have to sentence you to life as an outcast.

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