A specialist sports college for pupils with learning difficulties was thrilled to hear two of its cricketers had won England selection.

Haycliffe School is celebrating the success of Osman Ahmed, 15, of Lidget Green, Bradford, and former pupil John Taylor, 22, who are now both members of the England Cricket Disability Squad.

For John, who still plays for the school's team with his younger brother, it is second time round in the England team.

He has already played with the squad two years ago and toured South Africa but now he is setting his hopes even higher.

He said: "I want to stay in the England team as long as I can and go on tour with them in Australia in 2009."

His team-mate Osman said: "It's not easy getting selected, it can't happen to everyone so it was good for me.

"I'm really happy to be able to represent my country, it's a good thing to do."

England team selectors were tipped off by Bill Robinson, who is captain of the Yorkshire Disabled Cricket Team and is in regular contact with the school in Little Horton.

Mr Robinson said he soon spotted Osman and John had star quality. "You can just tell when a lad's got it, when he's co-ordinated and got what it takes to be a good cricketer and the ability to progress to be a fine player," he said.

Barry Holden, who is director of sport at Haycliffe School, said he was thrilled that cricket was becoming increasingly popular with pupils.

He said: "We are now a specialist sports college and as part of that got funding to put into extra resources.

"We used some of it to get all-weather crickets nets which are also used by other groups in the community and our neighbouring school Grange.

"We've got quite a few success stories with pupils in both the Yorkshire and England teams now and we've got quite a few other players coming up through the ranks to that level.

"These new nets will help bring them on even more."

By Kathie Griffiths