CRICKET - North flavour to celebraty match

That's why we live in the North, so we can do this sort of stuff.The big names from New Zealand cricket's past are all offering their services free of charge for tomorrow's Allens Celebrity Cricket Match but they all will leave Northland with a little something to titillate their taste buds on Sunday.
Barry Cooper, who will line up for the charity event at Cobham Oval for the Northland Masters side, is preparing a little surprise for his old adversaries and friends in the New Zealand Masters XI.
"We'd like to send the guys home with a taste of Northland hospitality so we went out and bought some tupperware containers to fill up with a few snapper fillets and some scallops and hopefully some crayfish to take back with them on Sunday morning," he said.
"We were hoping to take a few of them out fishing but, because there really wasn't time, we thought we'd do it for them and send them away with the spoils anyhow."
He said cricketers were renowned for their generosity when it came to supporting charity events and it was good to be able to give them a token of appreciation.
Cooper and his friend John Peterson went north to Rangiputa yesterday to fish and dive so they could collect seafood for cricketers coming from throughout the country to play in the charity match to raise funds for the North Haven Hospice.
The Northland tradition of providing seafood for visiting cricketers started a long time ago, Cooper said.
"In the old days, when the catering used to be done by the mothers of the players, we always used to go out and catch the visiting team a big feed to give them some special hospitality - and it's something that always goes down really well," he said.
He said people in other parts of the country don't seem to get out on the ocean as much as Northlanders.
"That's why we live in the North, so we can do this sort of stuff."
The twenty20 match starts at 1pm tomorrow at Cobham Oval and will be followed by the charity auction.