Azeem Rafiq has revealed his determination to bounce back from his infamous Twitter ban last August.

The Yorkshire off-spinner’s season was ruined by an ill-advised and foul-mouthed rant at England under-19s manager John Abrahams during a series against Sri Lanka.

When told that he was being sent home for repeatedly breaking team curfews, 19-year-old Rafiq posted the following on the social networking site.

“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 was suspended by Yorkshire in the face of a full investigation, before being banned from all forms of professional cricket for a month and fined £500 by the ECB.

Pakistan-born Rafiq, who courted controversy through no fault of his own when Yorkshire were thrown out of the Twenty20 Cup in 2008 due to a registration issue, did not play again when he returned from the ban.

But now, following a successful three-month spell playing grade cricket for Perth side Gosnalls, Rafiq is excited by the prospect of a new season and a fresh start.

“We all make mistakes and it’s one that I’ll definitely learn from and not want to repeat,” he said.

“I made a mistake and I put my hands up and apologised. I deserved everything I got, to be honest.

“It was an unfortunate time because it was right before an important Championship match against Nottinghamshire at Headingley.

“The only positive that came from it was that it gave me a chance to work hard on my fitness. But I want to put all that behind me now and concentrate on my cricket.”

Rafiq is back in pre-season training with the Yorkshire squad after his spell down under was cut short for family reasons.

He said: “I really enjoyed my time out there. I got about 20 wickets at an average of 12, or something like that, and I’m really looking forward to the start of our season now.

“Last year we were a good team but now we need to turn ourselves into a trophy-winning team. We’ve already started speaking about how we can do that.

“We know that we’ve got the talent and ability within the squad, there’s no doubt about that. It is just basically those little one per centers; the little things.

“The best teams always do the basics well. If we do that, hopefully come the end of the year we’ll be in there with a chance. We’ve definitely got the desire and the hunger.”

Rafiq took four wickets from two County Championship matches last season, with all of them coming in the draw against Roses rivals Lancashire at Old Trafford. He also took seven wickets in ten Twenty20 matches.