The Bradford and Leeds Universities' Centre of Cricket Excellence team have suffered trials on and off the field in their build-up to the opening match of the season against Yorkshire at Headingley, starting on Easter Saturday.

After spending the winter months working hard indoors under the keen eye of coach Richard Horner they arrived at their Bradford Park Avenue base last week to find the ground severely vandalised.

Then the weather dealt a further cruel blow with heavy rain making it impossible for them to get in any outdoor net sessions.

"We had two practice games organised for last weekend but neither could take place and the ground has been too wet since for us to see any action," said Horner.

"It means we go into a big three-day game against Yorkshire without any outdoor match practice whatsoever."

Despite having several different faces around, Horner is convinced that the team will be able to improve upon last summer's performances through having more cricket experience.

Ryan Bradshaw, from Harrogate, has joined them from the Cardiff University Centre of Excellence where he was a successful hard-hitting batsman and wicketkeeper last season, and Bradford-Leeds have an even more mature wicketkeeper-batsman in Ismail Dawood who has this year moved Bradford League clubs from Hanging Heaton to Cleckheaton.

International experience comes from the impressive William Porterfield, who played for Ireland in this year's Under-19s World Cup in Bangladesh.

Bradford-Leeds Centre from: J Duffy, I Dawood, K Ahmed, M Bagley, P Eaglestone, T Glover, D Jones, G Nawaz, J Noble, A Patel, W Porterfield, J Siddall.

Yorkshire from: M Wood, C White, C Taylor, A Gale, M Lumb, V Craven, T Bresnan, S Guy, R Dawson, C Silverwood, J Blain, C Gilbert.

Updated: 10:55 Thursday, April 08, 2004