IT'S fairly unusual to get selected for your country at cricket when it isn't even your favourite sport. Simon Brown is unusually cheerful for a fast bowler, but his expression only becomes seriously animated when you mention basketball or golf. He is mildly hooked on both and plays them to a high standard. Anyway, carrying the Durham attack on your back for five years with nothing to show for it bar a perennial wooden spoon would dampen anyone's enthusiasm for their day job.
Now at last he has received wider recognition with a place in the England squad for the first Test at Lord's, starting tomorrow. He made the long journey down from Sunderland yesterday morning - has an England selection ever lived further from headquarters? - but was preparing for the reverse trip tonight if Chris Lewis is pronounced fit. Durham play at Hartlepool on Thursday.
Patience and stamina are the main prerequisites for opening Durham's bowling. Not only do you have long stints in the field but also long journeys after them. Brighton to Sunderland, for example, is 350 miles. Brown has both qualities in abundance, and this is where his other sporting interests come in.
He was good enough to have once been offered a basketball scholarship in America and plays regularly in the Tyne and Wear League, sometimes five nights a week. He claims this as the main source of his exceptional fitness record - only half a dozen county games missed despite reeling off 3,000 overs in five seasons.
To take his mind off the previous day's drubbing and steel himself for the next 35-over stint he plays golf, a hobby that will become a habit when he and his wife move house next week. ``The first tee at Boldon is about 80 feet from my back yard,'' he said excitedly.
Boldon. Now there's a place. At the northern perimeter of Sunderland, it bears the indelible image of the coal industry. There are streets of little miners' cottages and the remnants of various colliery contraptions beside which cows graze on reclaimed coal slurry.
Brown was born in the area, went to school there, played for the local cricket club and wouldn't want to live anywhere else. His call-up isn't quite a reincarnation of the ancient tactic of whistling down the pit for a fast bowler (his family are electricians), but it's not far from it.
``Michael Jordan has got to be the world's greatest living athlete,'' he said, ``I mean Shaquille O'Neal's just a beanpole who stands by the net. I haven't watched much of the Dream Team yet - been on the golf course.''
Similar in style to John Lever, with a longish, smooth run and a persistent inswinger, Brown made little headway in four years at Northampton - overloaded with seamers at the time though he does value the advice he got from Dennis Lillee while he was coach. ``He had fascinating views on the game, supreme self-belief and such interesting ways of getting people out.''
These ``interesting ways'' were initially translated as caught at cover off a wide half-volley when Geoff Cook lured Brown back to the North East the year before Durham became a first-class county. But with extra responsibility his confidence grew. In return for being encumbered with the team kit van, he was given the new ball and choice of ends and became more and more reliable.
The kit always arrived, his bowling got quicker and the swing more pronounced, and he bamboozled the 1993 Australians, his seven for 70 forcing them to follow-on for the only time on tour. The feat was ultimately overshadowed by Ian Botham announcing his retirement on the second day.
Now he is close to 300 first-class wickets for Durham. He invariably snares an early victim and has whipped out Michael Atherton on various occasions, but he'd rather talk about slamdunks or birdies than nip-backers.
``Michael Jordan has got to be the world's greatest living athlete,'' he said, ``I mean Shaquille O'Neal's just a beanpole who stands by the net. I haven't watched much of the Dream Team yet - been on the golf course.''
With all this sport and a winter job lugging domestic electrical appliances about, Brown cuts a lean, wiry figure, hence the nickname Chubby. Like so many others in county cricket, he is uncomplicated, honest and never work-shy. Just the sort of chap you'd want in any national sports team in fact, whatever his real passion.