• Experienced pair could play in Napier to help save T20 series• Matt Parkinson and Tom Banton expected to keep placesIt was in Napier, the art deco-styled coastal city on the North Island playing host to Friday evening’s fourth T20 between
New Zealand and England, that Alan Mullally once left a dead shark in Mike Atherton’s bed as a prank.
On his first tour with
England in the winter of 1996-97, the left-armer was ribbing his captain for a lack of fishing success and was then left out of the next match. Even if there were chiefly cricketing reasons at play, a bloodied 90kg mako with a note attached to its fin “Athers, this is a fish” – probably did not help Mullally’s case.