Headingley owners Leeds CFAC are prepared to sell the cricket ground to Yorkshire - and the county club are eager to buy it just as soon as it is financially possible to do so.

The coming together by two parties so often at loggerheads in the past was revealed yesterday, when it was also announced that from now on Yorkshire will be responsible for the selling of all corporate cricket hospitality at the venue, whether for Test matches or county games - which could reap an annual income of £250,000.

Leeds CFAC had previously been in charge of organising corporate hospitality inside the cricket ground and Yorkshire's cut of the profits this year amounted to around £50,000.

But Yorkshire chief executive Colin Graves said he estimated that under the new arrangement Yorkshire could see their income from this source rise by 500 per cent.

Leeds will get a guaranteed basic financial return but in effect Yorkshire have at last got their hands on the income stream from cricket catering which is what they have long sought but until now have been unable to achieve.

Leeds CFAC chairman, Paul Caddick, who attended yesterday's press conference along with the company's managing director, Gary Hetherington, said he was confident that Yorkshire would do very well and he felt it was right that cricket should be selling cricket.

"We should all benefit from rationalising the management at Headingley and I am sure we will do so under the new relationship," he said.

Graves said he could not yet put a time on when Yorkshire would own Headingley because a lot of financial equity had to be raised first but it was part of his long-term plan that they would do so.