YORKSHIRE chief Steve Denison says the successful staging of the England v West Indies Test at Headingley and an improvement on T20 Blast crowds have helped improve the club's finances.

They have a debt of approximately £25m, with borrowing powers for another £17m to be added when building the new Football Stand.

But the chairman insists things are looking up for the county.

“We comfortably beat our budgets for the Test,” said Denison.

“Blast attendances were 20 per cent up on last year. We always exclude the Lancs game, which is always a sell out. For the other remaining group games, we were 20 per cent up.

“What we said two or three years ago was that we just needed to survive financially through to 2019 when we have the Ashes Test and the landscape changes both internationally and with the new domestic T20 coming in the following year.

“The pouring rights (drinks sales at the stadium) also come back at the end of next year.

“We’d also spoken about a ground naming rights sponsor, which has taken some time to do.

“Survival was the order of the day, which is why we refinanced the club and have driven things really hard in terms of cost.

“We turned that horrible £1.4m loss into a small profit last year. I think we’ll make a slightly bigger profit this year as well.

“A Pakistan Test in May in the middle of Ramadan next year won’t be easy, but we do have an Indian one-dayer.

“We are changing the vibe of Yorkshire cricket, including taking T20 warm-ups around the county, regenerating Bradford Park Avenue, the support we’re giving to Scarborough to enable their further development.

“It’s also what we’ll try and do in Sheffield as quickly as we possibly can.

“To change the view people have of Yorkshire CCC, both from within the county and the wider game, I think we’re well on the way to doing that.

“This Test definitely helped, and we can start to look forward.”