CHAIRMAN of selectors David Graveney will be wearing his Durham blazer when England play India in the Riverside's first floodlit international on Thursday.

Well, that's what he told my old mate Jeff Brown, who conscientiously covered Durham home and away for a rival newspaper for five years before joining Tyne Tees Television.

Jeff will be presenting "Durham - A First-Class Story" at 10.30pm on Friday, looking back over the county's ten years among the elite.

I was among those he interviewed during Durham's visit to Lord's a month ago, and for once he assures me I haven't been consigned entirely to the cutting room floor.

Jeff and his team also went to the Old Trafford Test and spoke to Graveney and his former Durham teammates Ian Botham and Simon Hughes.

They were all very complimentary about Durham apparently, although Botham, unlike Graveney, believes every club needs two overseas players. Well, he had the good fortune to play in the same Somerset team as Viv Richards and Joel Garner, so he would say that, wouldn't he?

Tyne Tees also spoke to John Glendenen, who faced Durham's first ball in first-class cricket at Oxford. He now works in security for Stockton Council and doesn't even look at the cricket scores, which probably goes to show that if you don't love the game you are unlikely to be a big success at it.

THE Tyne Tees programme concentrates on how the team has changed from a collection of hired hands to one of local youngsters. This undoubtedly represents progress, but some things never change.

One is Durham's extraordinary penchant for making a complete horlicks of the best trip of the season for their fans.

It wasn't always the case. In 1992 at Horsham - the most picturesque ground I've visited for a first-class game - they took Sussex to the very last ball before losing by four wickets.

The following year they took Glamorgan well into the fourth day before losing by 113 runs at Colwyn Bay, but since then the only respite came when they actually won by an innings inside three days at Cheltenham in 1999.

It all began with a two-day defeat at Taunton in 1994. That was the occasion when a Durham director drove down after work on the Friday and turned up at the ground the following day, not realising the match was over.

In 1996 Durham lost by an innings at Hove, where their record tenth wicket stand of 103 between Melvyn Betts and David Cox saw the match spill over into a fourth day by five minutes. The nine-wicket defeat at Worcester ended at 1.03 on the third day.

The following year they lost by an innings at Cheltenham, where their first innings dismissal for 86 was even more inexcusable than last Wednesday's first morning capitulation.

In 1998 the trips to Canterbury and Taunton both brought big defeats in three days.

Unfortunately, Durham have not sampled the delights of Canterbury since, with the Kent match in 2000 being staged at Tunbridge Wells, where Durham were dismissed for 81 and 143 and lost by 190 runs. In the same season they were out for 83 and 93 and lost by an innings and 164 runs to Hampshire in the final first-class match at Basingstoke.

Last season's match at Hampshire's attractive new ground was over in three days, and last week's debacle left many Durham fans grateful that Worcester races provided a diversion on Saturday prior to yesterday's National League match.

IF Worcestershire are promoted, where will the fans pick for their favourite outing next season? They might have a day trip to dreary old Headingley but for the purposes of a cricket-watching holiday they will be praying that Somerset join Yorkshire in being relegated.

Among my least favourite trips is to this week's venue, Northampton, where there is nothing remotely to rival the wonderful Worcester ladies' tea room. It was reassuring to find that some glorious traditions remain unchanged, while the best old pub in the city, the Cardinal's Hat, has closed down and is surrounded by places with loud music and flashing lights advertising alcopops at £1.80.

The run-laden track at Northampton will probably ensure that we are detained until 6pm on Saturday, after which Durham must head off for the following day's match at Maidstone. A pity it's not Canterbury, where skipper Jon Lewis could have relived the memory of his only one-day bowling for Durham, resulting in figures of 1-0-31-0.