Symonds exit upset 20-20 team balance: Ponting

The loss of all-rounder Andrew Symonds upset his teams balance in the failed world Twenty20 campaign, claimed skipper Ricky Ponting.

London, June 9 : The loss of all-rounder Andrew Symonds upset his team's balance in the failed world Twenty20 campaign, claimed skipper Ricky Ponting.

Symonds was sent home in disgrace over drinking and disciplinary issues on Thursday, two days before Australia's first match of the tournament, which the West Indies won by seven wickets.

The Australians were then dumped out of the competition following Monday's six-wicket loss to Sri Lanka.

"It upset a lot of our structures around the team. Andrew is one of those guys that's just been over in the IPL for the last couple of months. He's one of the best individual players in this form of the game anywhere in the world, so when you lose someone like that out of your side it does throw a spanner in the works for sure," the Herald Sun quoted Ponting, as saying.

But he refused to use Symonds' absence to explain Australia's disappointing performance.

"We're not going to use that as a reason or as an excuse. We had 14 other guys here that had to step up in his absence. We've been able to do that and good enough to do that in the past when we've lost some of our better players out of the side and over the last few days we haven't been good enough," Ponting said.

"I haven't actually heard any talk about Symo not being around over the last few days, so I would like to think that that hasn't played on the minds of any of our players. But when you lose someone of the quality and the calibre of him out of the T20 team, it certainly leaves a big hole," The Australian quoted him, as saying.

ANI