Bradford Council’s decision to gamble £50,000 of public money by helping to underwrite the cost of a cricket Test between Pakistan and Australia is staggering.

That the said cricket match was in Leeds simply rubs salt into the wound.

What possible reason could there be for committing this amount of cash to an event for which demand was completely unknown? As it turned out, less than a quarter of the 16,000 seats at Headingley were filled.

It was a disastrous decision by Yorkshire County Cricket Club, which decided to bid for this Test rather than one of England’s Test matches last summer. But at least the club’s desire to do something different within its own sport is understandable.

Bradford councillors have far less justification. The leader at the time, now MP for Keighley, Kris Hopkins, says the Council believed it was the right thing to do. He says it was a large significant event in close proximity, with a sizeable number of people in the community who might be interested in it.

That could apply to many events – not least Bradford City or Bulls matches or even Leeds Festival pop concerts (which all attract far bigger crowds) – but how many of them does the Council underwrite?

It might be argued that times were less tight when the decision was made; but for the last 18 months at least everybody has been aware that spending cuts were on the way. So why and how was the decision made? We need answers and someone has to be held to account.

Mr Hopkins’s statement does not satisfactorily explain how this was allowed to happen.

To mix sporting metaphors, this was a catastrophic own goal for the Council. We are at the very least owed a full explanation of the decision-making process that led to it.