Watch: Mark Wood has sent English cricket Twitter into a frenzy with his on-field antics during the final day of the first England-New Zealand Test at Lord’s, caught on stump mic shouting ‘Asprilla’, the name of a former Newcastle footballer, as he kicked the ball at the stumps.

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Wood’s first kick found the target, though Ross Taylor had made his ground, but it was his shout of “Asprilla”, in reference to Faustino Asprilla, who scored nine goals in 48 appearances for the North-East side between 1996 and 1998, that gained attention. Later on, he could be heard shouting “Ketsbaia”, with Georgian international Temur Ketsbaia another late-Nineties Newcastle player.

Wood has previously discussed Asprilla before, though not in a wholly positive light. While the debate over whether England should pick Jofra Archer for their 2019 World Cup squad was raging, Wood made reference to former Newcastle manager Kevin Keegan signing the Colombian international in February 1996. The Magpies were top of the English Premier League table at the time, but ended up finishing second to Manchester United, a campaign famous for Keegan’s “I will love it if we beat them” rant.

“I was speaking about this with the lads at Durham and it was the old Kevin Keegan thing, bringing in Tino Asprilla because you want to keep the team at the top,” Wood said. “You still want to keep moving forward but does that change the dynamic? Does it mix it up? All of a sudden, you can lose the momentum and drop down.”

While Mark Wood was born in Ashington and still plays for Durham, he is an AFC Wimbledon fan.

Watch Wood shout ‘Asprilla’ below:

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