A PANEL, chaired by Judge Edward Slinger, is to convene in Manchester on Thursday to hear the case against Yorkshire for fielding an ineligible player in a Twenty20 Cup match, which does not compensate for a horrendous example of bureaucratic decision-making.

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Durham and the cricketing public are the innocent victims of an England and Wales Cricket Board kicking. The county had sold 6,000 tickets at Riverside for yesterday's postponed quarter-final against neighbouring Yorkshire, and it is quite likely many spectators had taken time off work or had incurred expense in travelling up to Chester-le-Street. A simple ticket refund would be little consolation.

Yorkshire were discovered to have used a young ineligible player, Azeem Rafiq from their Academy, against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge on June 27, but it should have been far too late for the ECB to stop the Riverside match for an innocent mistake. Instead the game should have gone ahead, with Yorkshire fined and docked, say, four points for next year's qualifying group.

Durham's coach Geoff Cook hit the nail on the head when he said: "Through no fault of our own, and without feeling too sorry for ourselves, we seem to be suffering all round. It's very complicated, very sad for the game and very sad for the competition. I feel very sorry for the lad involved."

Rafiq's figures against Notts were 2-0-18-0 and he did not bat in Yorkshire's nine-wicket victory. Should Notts go through under these circumstances? Of course not. What are the ECB playing at?

Regulations are regulations, but the error was discovered too late for such a fundamental upheaval to the Durham match.

Durham’s chief executive David Harker said: "You’ve got to take a view of how heinous the crime was. This wasn’t a guy who’d come in from overseas to win them the game and consequently done just that. This was a young kid. I suspect someone’s looked at a scorecard on the website and thought, ‘Oh, I’ve never heard of him, where’s he from?’ and then they’ve thought, ‘Well wait a minute, he’s not qualified’. I don’t know."

The explanation by Stewart Regan for the hitch was this. "Ultimately, the buck stops with me. I'm responsible for running the club," he said. "The club has got to put its hands up and say we didn't register the player correctly and we didn't look into the player's personal circumstances as a first-team cricketer.

"The situation was compounded because he was pulled straight from the academy at very short notice to play for the first team when we had a couple of other players unavailable. It was that speed of selection, coupled with the fact that he hadn't been registered last October, which led to the situation we found ourselves in."

Rafiq captained England Under-15s and has played at every level for Yorkshire, but because he was born in Pakistan and is not a British citizen he should have have been registered as an overseas player.

The ECB panel Judge Slinger, James Pickup QC and Simon Schanschieff are to meet at Old Trafford.

CHARLIE SAYS: Can anyone disagree with what I've said above? This is ECB knee-jerk bureaucracy, with no thought for the public apart from an expression of regret.