Ricky Ponting has been dropped from Australia's one-day team after being knocked unconscious in a fight at a Sydney night club in the early hours of Monday morning. Ponting admitted yesterday to a problem with alcohol and said he intended to follow advice from the Australian Cricketers' Association to seek counselling.

Sporting a bruise under his left eye, Ponting, who said he had no recollections of the incident, read from a brief prepared statement and later answered questions.

He has been charged by the Australian Cricket Board with a breach of the code of conduct that governs player behaviour and has been withdrawn from the one-day team until the ACB conducts an inquiry. It hopes to complete this by early next week.

The decision to announce publicly that a player has been dropped for disciplinary reasons is unprecedented and comes after Ponting was fined last March after a fracas at a Calcutta night club during Australia's tour of India.

"I accept the reasons behind that decision," Ponting said. "I have to admit to myself I have a problem with alcohol at times and I intend to overcome this problem. At times I drink too much and get into situations I don't want to get into.

"I am thankful for the support I have received from my team-mates, the ACB and my family. I feel like I've let a lot of people down, particularly my team-mates and those close to me."

Mal Speed, the ACB chief executive, said the board would seek an independent lawyer to investigate the incident and would make public those findings and any further penalties imposed on Ponting. Speed said that the police had not been informed.

Ponting said he had gone to the Bourbon and Beefsteak Bar in Sydney's Kings Cross area with a group of people he had met that night. He was the only member of the team there. He said that some time later he came to in the team's hotel some distance from Kings Cross and could not remember the incident or how he got back.

The 24-year-old batsman from Launceston has often been seen as a likely Australian captain, but he conceded that this latest episode had damaged his chances. He agreed that his career was now "on thin ice" after this second transgression.

"I think that's probably fair to say," he said. "I've certainly overstepped the mark a couple of times now and, as I've said, I've got to do the best that I can do to make sure that doesn't happen again. The support has been fantastic. I can't keep letting those people down."

Speed said Australia's team manager Steve Bernard had investigated the incident on Tuesday as the team flew from Sydney to Hobart to prepare for the game against Sri Lanka. He said he heard of the incident from Bernard only late on Tuesday night.

"The Australian team manager, the coach, the chairman of selectors and the captain have been in discussion and are satisfied there has been a clear breach of the team's rules relating to discipline and drinking," Speed said. He said that generally there was a midnight curfew on players and a 1.30 a.m. curfew after day/night one-day games.

Ponting said that apart from a black eye and "a big dent in my pride", he had suffered no injuries.