Blackcaps leg-spinner Ish Sodhi is on the verge of becoming just the second Kiwi to reach 100 Twenty20 international wickets.
Sodhi, 29, will join only veteran bowler Tim Southee in reaching the milestone, with his first opportunity in New Zealand's opening tri-series game against Pakistan on Saturday.
Having joined Canterbury from the Northern Districts for the 2022/2023 domestic season, he will most likely bring up his ton at his new home ground of Hagley Oval.
Despite the personal accolade, Sodhi is focused on helping this team win on Saturday, but will happily take any wickets that come his way.
"I suppose when you put it like that, it's pretty special," he said. "I've just recently moved to Canterbury, my cricket's come here now.
"I'm living down here, so it's nice to get to play a series at home to start the summer off and hopefully we can build into it nicely with the World Cup coming around the corner.
"Yeah, it will be quite nice. When you're younger, you always want to contribute and play for your country and stuff, so it will be nice if I can get there and even nicer if we can pull off a win on Saturday."
The tri-series against Pakistan and Bangladesh will provide the last opportunity the Blackcaps will have for full-fledged internationals before the T20 World Cup in Australia.
Sodhi believes the series will serve as ideal preparation for what's to come later this month, as his team adjusts to playing the shortest format again.
"Obviously really important just to figure things out before the World Cup, but get back to playing some T20 cricket.
"The boys have been away playing ODIs and stuff like that, and we're going to play on some slightly bigger grounds over in Australia. It's good preparation here at Hagley because it's probably our biggest ground in the country.
"It's always challenging going over there, and looking forward, it's really important that we get our T20 brains back on.
"We've got some great T20 international performers in our side, and a couple of really tough opposition that have come over to our shores.
"T20 is a really unpredictable game, so we're going to be thrown into some situations over the next week that we might face over in the World Cup, and it will be great to see how we respond to them and then keep moving forward from there."
