Cricket: Headingley facelift

HEADINGLEY will look and feel very different when the new season opens next month. The old pavilion is being completely reconstructed, at a cost of pounds 1.5m, to alter drastically a familiar skyline, writes Derek Hodgson.

Players will no longer be in the flat modern building at square leg but under the grandstand, using Leeds Rugby League Club's palatial facilities; television cameras will no longer focus on a batsman coming down the steps on his way to the crease; players will emerge from behind the stumps, out of what will appear to be a tunnel, Wembley-style.

'Co-operation between Yorkshire and Leeds has never been closer,' Yorkshire's chief executive, Chris Hassell, said yesterday, as he revealed plans for the new season. Sponsorship figures are already up on 1992; a 20 per cent increase in membership is targeted; 600 schools have been visited by a Yorkshire player this winter and junior members will be admitted free to the Test match against Australia on the Thursday and Sunday.