Yorkshire have been kicked out of the Twenty20 Cup for fielding an ineligible player, the ECB have confirmed, with Nottinghamshire being reinstated into the competition.

The White Rose county’s quarter-final clash at Durham had to be postponed in farcical circumstances at the last minute earlier this week, after it emerged that Azeem Rafiq, a teenage cricketer, had played in a group game against Nottinghamshire at Trent Bridge on June 27 without being registered for the competition.

Rafiq, a 17-year-old from Barnsley, who had captained England Under-15s, was born in Pakistan and arrived in the UK in 2001, but had not been registered by Yorkshire and did not have a British passport, which technically made him an overseas player.

Yorkshire won that match, convincingly, thereby qualifying for the last eight of the lucrative competition as one of the two best third-placed teams and earning an away tie at the Riverside. Now, however, the points from the match with Nottinghamshire have now been awarded to the home side who qualify at Yorkshire's expense and will face Durham in due course.

The administrative error is potentially a costly one for Yorkshire, as the winners of the quarter-finals qualify for the finals day, with the two finalists going through to the £2.5million Champions League tournament in October.

Thousands of Durham fans were left disappointed on Monday. After a day of frantic negotiations the ECB informed Durham shortly before 5pm that the televised match should not be staged because its result was unlikely to stand. A crowd of about 7,000, who had paid up to £20 for a ticket, were informed of the abandonment at 5.18pm, eight minutes after the scheduled start, prompting angry scenes.

David Harker, the Durham chief executive, was incensed that the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) called off the game at such a late stage and had called for the home side to be given a bye through to the semi-finals.

"We are totally and utterly disappointed," Colin Graves, the Yorkshire chairman, said. “We have the right to appeal and we’re going to get together tomorrow and sort out our appeal.”

An ECB statement tonight read: “Detailed submissions were heard from Yorkshire and the panel further invited comments from representatives of Nottinghamshire and Durham, who were most directly affected by the situation.

“The decision of the panel is that Yorkshire be excluded from this year’s Twenty20 Cup competition, the match and points awarded to Nottinghamshire, and Yorkshire pay £1,000 in costs.

“In coming to their decision the panel took the view that this was a serious breach of the regulations and could not be passed over as a clerical error.

“In reaching their decision the panel accepted there was no deliberate flouting of the regulations but all counties are aware of the need to ensure compliance with the regulations - which are designed to ensure the smooth and fair running of the game of cricket.

“The panel find that Yorkshire were aware, no later than early 2007, that there were questions as to the player’s immigration status and were, therefore, put on notice properly to check his eligibility.

“This was not done even though on June 27, 2008 the player was making his debut. The panel took the view that in the circumstances of the situation the ECB did all they reasonably could to ensure that the Twenty20 Cup match between Durham and Yorkshire could go ahead on July 7.“

Kent qualified for Twenty20 finals day after beating Warwickshire by 42 runs at Edgbaston.