The gates honouring Sir Leonard Hutton and the new West Stand were finally opened at Headingley on the eve of the fourth Test against Australia yesterday, after a triple-decker rumpus in the finest Yorkshire tradition. The club president, Robin Smith, insisted the gates, attacked for over-prominently depicting women in saris among the spectators, represented Headingley "yesterday, today and tomorrow".

But, though the glories of yesterday still get people going around here, it is today and tomorrow, literally, that are causing the most alarm. Though Leeds was warm and dry all day, the ceremony took place with the Headingley pitch completely covered, like the most demure and proper of sari-clad Asian matrons.

This suggested there was something to hide and that the groundsman was terrified of the pitch drying out further and providing yet another money-back-for-Sunday (or even Saturday) Test match. The England camp are already convinced that it will break up on a spinner's length and provide a bonanza for Shane Warne. One senior official privately described the wicket as "a shambles".

This is not the view of most locals. Yorkshire are proud of the latest statistics showing that their much-maligned pitch is behind only Old Trafford and Trent Bridge among English Test grounds for run-scoring in the past decade. One of their luminaries, here for the ceremony, bearded the England captain on the subject. "Good pitch, isn't it, Nasser?" "Pah!" was the response.

The next 48 hours will tell, but England, despite their passable showing in the last Test, are approaching this game in a worse frame of mind than ever. Robert Croft has been kept here against the possibility that he will have to play but, though England think it will turn square for Australia's spinner, they have no confidence that it will turn for theirs.

Presumably Alan Mullally will be fourth seamer ahead of Richard Johnson with the final decision resting between the batsman Usman Afzaal and Croft at number seven. It is a choice they will make with no relish.

Defeatism is everywhere, every characteristic of a routed army save the sight of a ghostly lone piper appearing on the pavilion ramparts playing a lament.

Instead the musical accompaniment has been that of cuckoo-noises coming from Yorkshire; there have been three rows relating to yesterday's ceremony.

One concerned the original choice of the "southerner" John Major to do the honours, which Major, accustomed only to the genteel disagreements of the Conservative Party, defused by withdrawing.

The second involved the selection of the 36 Yorkshire players to appear on flags over the new stand, which has subsided to a low rumble. The third and loudest was over the design of the gates.

The old Yorkshire players who went on the attack have been much abused, even in the Daily Telegraph. But the fact remains that, as supposed spectators of Hutton batting, the Asian women do look improbable, though one of them has a fierce expression that would have fitted perfectly into the Sheffield Grinders' Stand circa 1930 ("Gerron wi'it, Lanka-sheeer!").

Yorkshire still need an update on their racial attitudes but there are more effective ways of providing that than forcing them to ensure a political corrective in steel and bronze. However, it would have been more helpful if some of their old players, in the month of the Bradford riots, had known when to shut up.

The old guard remained largely unreconciled. Fred Trueman was not present; Geoff Boycott was seen not applauding; Brian Close chuntered; and Bob Appleyard, who insisted he had never objected to John Major, still thought the gates were "inappropriate" and "a mismatch".

Only Dickie Bird wanted peace: "All this bickering! We've got to get behind the Yorkshire team. We're on the verge of winning the Championship."

The new West Stand has better raking and more legroom than the old much-loathed Western Terrace it replaced. However, Robin Smith (not even the Robin Smith; this one is a lawyer) emphasised the problem when he asked us to leave by (oh, splendid word!) the vomitories. Since the Western Terrace was known, even more than for racist chants, for its vomiting, this was not very well-chosen.

The piecemeal rebuilding of this inadequate and badly-sited ground emphasised the opportunity English cricket lost when Yorkshire failed to get a new stadium. Headingley is still historic, still the field of miracles. But England will wake this morning knowing they need a bloody huge one.