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"I'm passionate about the battle in the middle," he says. "I haven't come here for fun. The competing - that's the bit I love.

"Some days training drags on, and you think, 'Agh, I've got to drag myself out of bed for this again.' You're lying if you've never felt that as an athlete. But you get there, you get warmed up, and you find a way of enjoying it - whether it's having a joke, pulling someone's shorts down - whatever it takes."

Symonds' way of enjoying things has not always been appreciated by those in positions of authority. Forget merely , a la Freddie Flintoff, or tugging on a ciggie while sending salacious texts like Shane Warne.

The Symonds rap-sheet is as long as the flight from Down Under. Take your pick - suspended from the Australian team in 2005 after turning up at a one-day international still wasted from the night before; shoulder-charging a streaker at the Gabba two years later; being sent home before a series against Bangladesh after deciding to ignore a team meeting in favour of a fishing trip; making unfortunate remarks about Brendon McCullum and Matthew Hayden's wife during an infamous radio interview with comedians Roy & HG.

Symonds' precious Cricket Australia contract was eventually terminated after another mammoth drinking session saw him in England. He is unlikely to ever play for his country again, cut adrift after far fewer international appearances (26 Tests, 198 ODIs) than his youthful talent once promised.

So. If the Andrew Symonds of today could go back and have a quiet word with the lean 20-year-old who blasted that record-breaking 254, what would he say?

He looks out across the checkerboard green of the Oval outfield. "I think I would have done the same thing, but I would have maybe seeked out help or talked to people when - well, done things slightly differently when my profile got bigger.

"I think that's when I found life difficult. I'm a very private person and I like my space, and I look back and I didn't deal with that as well as I could have. Being in the public limelight - some days I was good, and some days I wasn't too good at all."

What used to happen on those ? Symonds has denied claims that he was an alcoholic, insisting it was more about occasional binges ("I go out and drink hard all in one hit - too fast, too much"). But surely he must have known how much trouble he was about to cause?

"It just used to build up inside me, and then I'd go and do something silly - as a release. Because my time was always bundled up with all the cricket, and the things that go with cricket, I just didn't have the time I needed for myself.

"Mum always used to say to me, 'You're gonna blow.' I could feel it all building up inside me, and then, boom! I'd go."

He pauses and scratches his chin. "We all make mistakes, although I'm not proud of some of the mistakes I've made. But I reckoned I've mellowed right out now."

What's triggered the change - age? Remorse?

"I reckon I just don't have the same pressures on me; the same requirements to play the game - the sponsors and the media and all that stuff. It's been toned right down, so I've got time for myself, to sit down and think.

"I've learned a great deal, privately and personally and professionally over the past two years, possibly as much as I did in the five before that."

Symonds is not the only live-wire in the Surrey dressing-room; the county is also playing host to both Andre Nel and the fast bowler's . "I guess I'm attracted to the broken souls," cricket manager Chris Adams has remarked, tongue partially in cheek, but for Symonds this sort of support is all-important.

"The other thing for me was, the art of coaching is man-management as well. There's no two blokes in the team who are the same. And they have to be managed right as well. There were a lot of things that could have been handled better off the field by different organisations, and that took its toll on me, I reckon."

In some ways Symonds is the archetypal uncomplicated Queenslander. He describes his perfect day like this: "I'd wake up on a river bank or round a camp fire with the boys, cook some breakfast, jump in the boats, go up the creeks, catch a barra (barramundi) on my first cast..."

He loves rugby league, says the are his favourite sporting event and would have loved to have played for legendary coach ("although I'd be broke down - I'd be on crutches like you").

In other ways he's rather more complicated. On the surface the very , he wept openly after winning the first of his two World Cup in 2003, has settled happily in hyperactive Hyderabad during his stints with the and is about to star in a new Bollywood production called Patiala House.

His cricketing skills he attributes to Ken and Barbara Symonds, the Birmingham couple who adopted him aged three months and moved the family to Australia just over a year later. Ken, a cricket nut, used to bowl at his son for hours on end; inside the house, impromptu games would be played using ping-pong balls and Christmas baubles.

"As a kid I suppose it's the best thing for developing your hand-eye coordination. It gives you confidence, and you have fun doing it. I'm very grateful for how I was reared."

I ask Symonds what he loves most about his chosen sport. Is it pinging a six right of the middle, taking a diving catch, splattering someone's stumps?

"Nah. It's the moment of victory. Before a World Cup you might train by yourself for six weeks, train with the team for six weeks, play all your group matches, make it through the semi-finals - and the moment you win that final, it's all worth it. It's all worth it.

"That's... that's... I love that moment. Doesn't matter whether I've scored a hundred or two - that's just the best feeling."

Symonds is due to return to Birmingham a few hours later to begin filming the Bollywood movie. The producers have a very specific role for him. "I've just got to look angry," he says, and raises an eyebrow.