LONDON:Ricky Ponting said Andrew Symonds had “let himself down, let all his team-mates down and Cricket Australia down” after he was sent home from Australia’s squad at the World Twenty20 in England. All-rounder Symonds’s exit on Thursday, which Australia captain Ponting confirmed was for an “alcohol-related incident”, came just 48 hours before the team’s opening Group C match against the West Indies at the Oval. This is not the first time that Symonds’s career has been blighted by off-field problems — on Australia’s 2005 tour of the UK he was dropped on the morning of their shock one-day defeat against Bangladesh in Cardiff following a late night drinking session. But whereas Ponting has often spoken up for Symonds, he deliberately avoided telling reporters on Thursday if the 33-year-old Queensland cricketer had an international future. “We are all a little bit disappointed with the events of the last 24 hours to tell the truth on the eve of a very big tournament for us,” Ponting said. “To lose one of our better players and better performing Twenty20 players in the world right now is far from ideal, but we have got to move on from it as quickly as possible.” Ponting said any sadness he felt at the latest indiscretion of Symonds, a hard-hitting batsman, brilliant fielder and a bowler capable of both spin and seam, went far beyond the personal. Ponting said: “I’m not going to go into specifics. I think James Sutherland (Cricket Australia chief executive) made it pretty clear it was an alcohol-related incident. He (Symonds) has let himself down, let all his team-mates down and CA down.” In the short term, the absence of Symonds — who was not selected for the Ashes series in England that follows the World Twenty20, with Shane Watson and Andrew McDonald chosen ahead of him — leaves Australia with a selection issue. “Now we’ve got to find someone who can have the same impact upon a game as Andrew Symonds can,” Ponting said. It probably throws the balance a little bit in our side but the beauty of our side is that there is a lot of flexibility within the group.” Symonds received counselling earlier this year and returned to the Australia team in the one-day series win over Pakistan in Dubai in April.