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THE Leeds area will become a focal point for development of the best players in England as a result of an announcement from Lord's.

The England and Wales Cricket Board named their six designated centres of excellence yesterday and these will include a combined facility based at Carnegie College, with a home ground at Bradford Park Avenue.

Students with first-class aspirations from the universities of Leeds Metropolitan, Leeds and Bradford, plus Bradford College, would be eligible to participate in the scheme.

With the Yorkshire Academy already in operation at Headingley, the Leeds part of Yorkshire should be well catered for at the start of the academic year in 2000. The ECB initiative should also provide ample opportunity for the large number of Asian cricketers in the area.

The six centres, each attracting an annual ECB grant of £50,000, have been chosen from 18 bids. The successful applicants are Oxford (with Oxford Brookes), Cambridge (with Anglia Polytechnic), Loughborough, Durham, Cardiff (involving Cardiff, Cardiff Institute and Glamorgan) and Leeds (to be co-ordinated with a separate bid from Bradford and Bradford College).

Other centres, such as Exeter, Bristol and Manchester, could be developed in any case, without ECB patronage.

John Carr, an ECB official, said: ``Our final choice reflects the need to balance an established cricket pedigree with high-quality indoor and outdoor facilities, a full range of academic courses and admissions opportunities, and the provision of excellent sports science and medicine input.''

The ECB are planning a two-day match championship for the centres, in addition to three first-class fixtures each against counties.

ECB centres: Oxford, Cambridge, Leeds/Bradford, Durham, Loughborough, Cardiff.

Unsuccessful bids: Birmingham, Bournemouth, Brighton, Bristol, Exeter, Hull, Canterbury, Manchester, Reading, Sheffield, Southampton.