Azeem Rafiq’s career is not over, according to Martyn Moxon – but boy, it hasn’t half been damaged!

Yorkshire are understandably furious with their highly-rated off-spinner for his tirade against England under-19s coach John Abrahams after he left him out of the second Test against Sri Lanka at Scarborough last week.

The episode started when Rafiq, the England captain, stayed out late during the first Test at Northampton.

He was left out of the second Test, sent home from duty, and followed it by calling Abrahams every name under the sun on his Twitter page.

Rafiq said: “What a ******* farsee (sic) ... John Abrahams is a useless ****... ECB prove it again what incompetent people are working for them!! John Abrahams is a useless ******.”

He has since been suspended pending a full investigation by Yorkshire and whatever punishment they decide will be supplemented by one from the ECB.

Bans and fines are likely and what is seemingly a foregone conclusion is that his under-19s career is over.

What on earth was Rafiq thinking when he put those kind of comments on a public page. If you are that angry, ring your best mate and rant at him.

Just for the record, I like Rafiq a lot, both as a player and as a person. He is a cracking prospect and I have already said this season that he will play Test cricket for England.

As a person, he is incredibly helpful, always willing to have a chat. Yes, he is very confident but there are plenty of decent folk who are confident!

Moxon, Yorkshire’s director of professional cricket, said: “His conduct is totally out of order, particularly the Twitter. That, for me, is the biggest crime. Being out late is not a good one but it is compounded by the Twitter situation.

“We have taken a dim view of the situation. We will wait to see what the ECB make of it. I do not think it is a sackable offence at this stage but, safe to say, we are not impressed by what has happened.

“Azeem is showing great remorse now and has apologised to everyone. I am sure he still has a future in this game but he needs to learn and learn quickly, that is for sure.”

Now he has apologised to all parties concerned, Rafiq would be well advised to get off Twitter and Facebook sharpish.

I remember speaking to Andrew Gale in the departure lounge coming back from Barbados about the very matter of Twitter. He said he had a page but rarely used it for fear of saying something out of turn in the heat of the moment. His words have come home to roost.

Stewart Regan, Yorkshire’s chief executive, says the club’s players will be warned of their responsibilities regarding social networking sites.

They will not be banned from using these sites but will be banned from using them to comment on anything controversial. They will still be allowed to comment on things such as hundreds.

For those of you familiar with Twitter, comments like “Galey batted like a dream today, great win by Yorkshire” from player AN Other will be accepted. Comments like “Galey’s captaincy was rubbish, get him sacked” will not.