England captain Michael Vaughan has suffered no adverse reaction from his knee operation and is confident of stepping on the plane for India next month.

Vaughan was speaking at Headingley where it was revealed that Yorkshire and Leeds CFAC, who own the football ground, had entered into a new partnership agreement with Leeds Metropolitan University with the complex now becoming the Headingley Carnegie Stadium.

Vaughan, who flew home from Pakistan before the start of the one-day series, said his knee had been cleaned out and he was moving much better.

"The real test will come when I start running, twisting and turning," he said.

The new Headingley deal announced yesterday is over ten years with the option of a further five years and Leeds Met's financial involvement has been a major factor in cementing the purchase of the freehold of the cricket ground by Yorkshire from Leeds CFAC. It is now the intention to make both the rugby and cricket stadia among the best in world sport.

"As a present Yorkshire player and the England captain it was a bitter blow to arrive back home from Pakistan on December 3 to find that Headingley might not keep its international status," said Vaughan.

"But then to hear that Yorkshire had bought the ground and that Test cricket was guaranteed for 15 years was the right way to end 2005 and the England players will be delighted that Ashes cricket will continue at Headingley."

Former athletics star, Brendan Foster, Chancellor of Leeds Metropolitan University, said the Headingley ground deal was a fantastic example of a sporting partnership taking place off the field.

The ambition had been to relocate part of the Carnegie faculty to Headingley and the plan had flourished.

Foster said that there had been a danger that Headingley would lose Test cricket. "Thank God that people saw sense and that Yorkshire's purchase of the ground went through, so saving Test cricket for Yorkshire and the north of England," he said.

"Sporting partnerships are the future of sport and they need to push forward. Headingley is a theatre of sporting dreams but we have to move on and I would like to see it turned into a dream factory, a place where dreams can be turned into reality."

Yorkshire chairman Robin Smith said the Carnegie stand, which was currently being erected on the rugby side, was both a viewing area for rugby and a college for Leeds Met.

The north-south stand, which rugby and cricket share, was built in the 1930s and was now "shot through" and needed replacing. Talks were going on with several organisations, including Sport England, and the aim was for Yorkshire and Leeds CFAC to build a new stand with a tunnel down the middle with cricket on one side and rugby on the other.

The new stand would provide Yorkshire with 3,000 additional seats, taking the capacity to 20,000 and putting it into the mainstream of big grounds.

The third and final stage of Yorkshire's development will be a new pavilion and media centre at the Kirkstall Lane end of the ground and Smith said this would be similar in design to the Melbourne Cricket Ground.

"This is the dawn of a new era and I don't know of any other sporting arrangement of three equal partners," said Smith.