BORN in South Africa of Irish parents who now live in Australia, Yorkshire's new wicketkeeper-batsman Gerard Brophy is a man of many international parts.

But all that concerns him now is finding a house close to Headingley and giving his undivided attention to his new club.

Brophy, 30 next month, has joined Yorkshire from Northamptonshire on a two-year contract and he's already looking forward to the new challenge which next season will bring.

"I am very excited about it," he said.

"Growing up in South Africa, I read and heard more about Yorkshire than any other county and soon learned that they were one of the biggest clubs in England.

"It was here at Headingley early last season when playing for Northants that I broke a finger while standing up to the medium pace of Bilal Shafayat."

While he was out injured, Brophy lost his place to Riki Wessels but prospered in the second team.

"I scored around 800 runs for the second team during the remainder of the summer at an average of 161 and would have backed myself to have regained my first-team place next season, but there are stages in one's career when it is time to move on and I decided that this was definitely so for me.

"I think Yorkshire have got a very strong squad and now that they have gained promotion I feel they are capable of lifting the Championship and that they also stand a good chance of winning other trophies.

"It will be very different keeping wicket at Headingley to what it was at Northampton where I learned a lot. The Northants pitch is good for batting on and also aids the spinners, whereas the ball wobbles around more at Headingley."

Having started out with Transvaal 'B' before touring Zimbabwe with the South African Academy in 1998-99, Brophy spent two seasons with Free State whom he captained in 2000-2001.

Brophy decided to look to England in order to further his career and qualified at Nottinghamshire, but that did not quite work out because Chris Reed decided to stay at Trent Bridge and this prevented Brophy from stepping up from the Second XI.

Having cancelled his contract with Free State he signed for Northants and began solely as a batsman, although he considers himself to be primarily a wicket-keeper.

"I made my debut at Worcester, fielded at third slip and put one down straight away," he said with a grin.

With his Irish ancestry, Brophy was able to turn out for Ireland in 2000 in the NatWest Trophy and he won't say no if they should call upon him for the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.

Brophy is already good mates with Matthew Hoggard, Michael Lumb and Deon Kruis, having played alongside them at various times in South Africa, and he'll get to know several other members of the team next month when Yorkshire send a party of nine players to the World Cricket Academy in Mumbai for ten days of coaching and practice, as well as some one-day matches.

Batting coach Kevin Sharp will be in charge of the party which flies out on November 13 and consists of Anthony McGrath, Matthew Wood, Joe Sayers, Lumb, Brophy, Andrew Gale, Richard Pyrah, Richard Dawson and Mark Lawson.

Updated: 12:20 Wednesday, October 26, 2005