YORKSHIRE CCC's Academy and the Bradford-Leeds Universities' Centre of Cricketing Excellence will develop closer ties if talks between the two parties over the next couple of months are successful.

The England and Wales Cricket Board back the Centre, which is based at Bradford Park Avenue, to the tune of £50,000 a year but they want it to produce more first class cricketers.

Its three-year deal with the ECB runs out at the end of the season but the Board have indicated they will give it financial support for at least another year if it can develop closer links with the county club's Academy.

That could mean that new entrants to the Academy would also agree to attend either Bradford-Leeds Universities or Bradford College for three years and play for the Centre of Excellence until the end of the summer term.

They would then be attached to the Yorkshire Academy and be under Yorkshire's jurisdiction for the remainder of the summer.

Steve Teasdale, direction of physical education at Bradford University, said: "If this arrangement comes about it would mean that youngsters who join the Academy would get a good education as well as the very best cricket coaching.

"Those who do not go on to become first class cricketers would find themselves qualified to do something else and would not be left without another career to fall back on.

"It would mean a cut in costs for both the Academy and the Centre and the shared facilities would be excellent.

"Nearly everyone agrees that Bradford Park Avenue continues to have some of the best cricket pitches in the county and they need to go on being used.

"Future ECB funding depends on a deal with Yorkshire and talks have started to try and sort something out."

Updated: 09:52 Friday, June 06, 2003