A history of Jason Brown's career 1994 He was engaged in 1994 on a dual registration and played a few games for Staffordshire in the Minor Counties as well as 11 games for the County II's in the 2nd XI Championship, taking 21 wickets at a shade over 40. 1995 Eleven 2nd XI appearances, doubling his wicket-tally (42 @ just under 23). The County finished runners-up in the 2nd XI Championship. 1996 Northants finished runners-up again, Jason playing 15 times and bagging 41 wickets @ 27.56. He was rewarded with his first-class debut in the County's final game of the season against Yorkshire at the County Ground. 1997 Jason snared his first First-Class wicket, R. O. Jones of Cambridge University at Fenner's in May, and went on to take 4-50 in the Students' first innings of the drawn match. Altogether, he played six first-team games that season taking 20 wickets @ 32.55. His first victim in the Championship was Adrian Dale of Glamorgan. Jason finished the campaign with his one-day debut against Leicestershire at the County Ground, helping the County to a 5-wicket win, taking 4 for 26 from his seven overs and was named Northamptonshire's Young Player of the Year. 1998 He ended the season top of the County's bowling averages with some 33 wickets @ 22 from eight first-team appearances. He recorded the first of his 10 wickets-in-the-match bag for Northants with 11 for 102 against Somerset at Taunton. (Todate he taken 10 wickets-in-the-match on five occasions). All told he bagged four 'five-fors' that season, the others both at Northampton (five for 23 v Sussex and five for 114 v Warwickshire). 1999 With Michael Davies joining-up with Graeme Swann in the County's spin bowling department, Jason was left waiting in the wings. While Davies (40 wickets) and Swann (57 wickets) kept Jason out of the first team, he remained in good form himself again finishing top of the II's bowling averages with 35 2nd XI Championship wickets at a miserly 18.91. 2000 Jason bounced back, replacing Davies in 2000 - only Darren Cousins (67 wickets) claiming more victims than the off-spinner (61 wickets @ 20.62) - as the County, bottom of the table on 10 July, made a late surge to claim the Division Two crown. Jason claimed four more 'five-fors' and two 10 wickets-in-the-match hauls. He took 11 for 178 against Warwickshire at Edgbaston and 11 for 131 versus Sussex at Northampton in August, taking him past 100 wickets in only his 23rd First-Class game. Jason's quartet of 'five-fors' were 7-78 v Sussex at Northampton; 5-58 and 6-90 against Warwickshire in Birmingham and 5-100 v Worcestershire at the County Ground. Altogether, Jason played ten times for the first team. Additionally, he made a dozen appearances in the 2nd XI Championship finishing-up their leading wicket-taker with 44 at a shade under 24. Like Cousins, he was rewarded with the Award of his County Cap. 2001 Jason began the year playing three games for the touring England A in the West Indies. He played against West Indies B, Trinidad & Tobago and Guyana taking 10 wickets before joining the senior England tour to Sri Lanka. Back home, he bagged 28 wickets for the County with his season's best five for 107 as Northants secured their first Championship win of the season, a 10-wickets victory over Essex. 2002 2002 brought another 28 wickets for the off-spinner, 4-88 v Derbyshire and 4-106 against Gloucestershire, both at Northampton but on this occasion no 'five-fors'. 2003 But he was on-song again in the County's double promotion season in 2003 with another quartet of 'five-fors' and a best ever (so far) seasonal haul of 66 wickets @ 23.71. His best bowling (still a career best) came at Chester-le-Street where he took 7 for 69 against Durham; six for 42 v Somerset; five for 89 v Worcestershire and five for 90 in the return against Durham, all at Northampton in the second half of the season when the statistics confirmed him as the most successful England-qualified spinner. 2004 In early May, Jason picked up the man-of-the-match Award in the C & G Trophy against Minor Counties Cambridgeshire. This was a Cambridgeshire home game transferred to Wantage Road after no play had been possible at the March Town Ground a day earlier. Jason's 10-1-19-5 are still the best One-Day figures of his career. In the Championship, Jason claimed 36 wickets in the season his best match return (9-164) coming at the end of July against Surrey at the County Ground. His best innings bowling (5-113) came in the same game which produced his only 'five for' of the campaign. 2005 But he came up trumps in 2005 bagging half-a-dozen 'five-fors' and a 10 wickets-in-a-match on two occasions on his way to 55 wickets at 28.20. His best match return (10-135) came in the 285-runs victory over Lancashire at the County Ground where he repeated the 10 wickets feat three weeks later in a remarkable game against Yorkshire when Jason and team-mate Monty Panesar both took five wickets in each innings, a rare feat, last achieved in the Championship over 40 years earlier. 2006 Jason bagged his only 'five-for' of the season early doors in 2006. It came in the first home game of the season when the off-spinner put the County on the road to an innings and 46 runs victory over Somerset with five for 82. It was the fifth occasion he had bagged five wickets in an innings against Somerset. He finished with seven wickets in the match and 35 wickets in the season at just over 50 runs each. 2007 His best bowling of 2007 (35.2-15-47-5) came in the drawn game against Glamorgan at Colwyn Bay. In the season, he claimed 30 wickets @ 41.16. Summing-up: Jason has now taken some 404 wickets in his 119-match career, spanning 12 seasons but he needs six more wickets to reach the 400 wickets milestone for NORTHAMPTONSHIRE. In 116 games for his adopted County he has taken 394 wickets @ 32.86, 249 of those wickets have come in 66 games at Northampton. Hopefully, the Northants' cricket fans won't have long to wait for Jason to bring up his 250th wicket at Northampton - the first home game is against Warwickshire in April and he has already taken 24 wickets against the West Midlanders in only five games against them. 16 of his 22 innings 'five-fors' have been achieved at Northampton as have three of his five 10-wickets in the match.