Former T20 world superstar Dan Christian will play for Corowa in Saturday's Cricket Albury-Wodonga provincial grand final against Lavington.
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Christian has been contesting a Legends tournament in Sri Lanka, but was constantly getting updates of the club's preliminary final against East Albury on Saturday.
Corowa romped to an eight-wicket win to qualify for its maiden Provincial decider after joining the top flight in 2020-2021.
The prospect of one of the game's finest short-form specialists just a few years ago contesting the decider at the best cricket facility between Canberra and Melbourne - Lavington Sportsground - should guarantee a cracking crowd.
The early forecast is a near-perfect, most sunny 27 degrees.
"He's won trophies all over the world, I think it might help keep the group calm," team-mate Ben Mitchell suggested.
Mitchell was the link to the CAW outfit attracting arguably the biggest name player in the association's 166 years.
Christian played 20 one-day internationals and 23 T20 internationals for Australia, gaining a reputation as a winner in the format, claiming titles across a host of countries.
He qualified for CAW's finals by playing the minimum six games, the last of which was against Tallangatta on February 10.
The powerful right-hand batter has 270 runs at 45, with a ton and a half-century.
Corowa's inaugural Provincial decider is tremendous reward after the club finished last in Wangaratta and District in 2016-2017.
It moved to CAW the following season and won the District flag, followed by two preliminary finals.
"Looking back, we didn't have any choice (to move to CAW) to be honest if we wanted to keep cricket going in the town," president Paul Lavis offered.
"When the WDCA brought in Mansfield and Benalla, it made it untenable for our juniors.
"We owe a lot of 'Erdel' (CAW chairperson Michael Erdeljac) and Robbie Mackinlay.
"Robbie was in his role with Cricket NSW then and he pushed it and said, 'you need to come up here', so the support from Cricket NSW has been outstanding and 'Erdel' wanted us here as well, so it's a big thank you to those two."
Lavington Sportsground will host the decider with an 11.30am start.
