LATER today, Brett Lee will open a safe in the room of his London hotel which overlooks Princess Diana's former home at Kensington Palace, and carefully remove his very own crown jewel - an Australian Test player's baggy green cap.
During his 18 months of exile from the Test arena, Lee has been sustained and motivated by the dream of again donning Australian sport's most symbolic garment.
So thrilled is the 28-year-old at the prospect of again wearing his prized possession he will dispense with a long-held ritual and wear the Australian cap throughout the match.
"If I get the chance today, that baggy green cap won't be coming off my head," Lee said yesterday. "It's going to be on the whole day, it will be on for the entire game.
"As far as cricket goes it's my most prized possession. I keep it in a safe in my house and in a room safe when we're in hotels.
"As far as the team rules go, we're only obliged to wear the baggy green for the first session of every bowling innings and then it's personal choice as to what you wear on your head.
"I've always chosen to go for my white floppy when I've played Test cricket because I wanted to keep the sun off my ears and the back of my neck, so I became comfortable wearing the wide-brimmed hat.
"But I can tell you that if I play at Lord's, I won't be taking that baggy green cap off."
Tonight (AEST), barring any last-minute setback in the pre-match warm-up, Lee will not only line up for his first Test appearance since January, 2004 but is also likely to be afforded the considerable honour of bowling the first over ahead of Glenn McGrath.
That would amount to a quantum shift in Australia's tactical thinking and pecking order, given that senior paceman McGrath has had his choice of ends for every Test in which he's been available since Craig McDermott's retirement in January 1996.
Having finally won his battle for Lee's recall, captain Ricky Ponting is considering unleashing Lee from McGrath's favoured end -- down the famous Lord's slope -- in a bid to grab early wickets in the opening skirmish.
While Ponting's radical departure from accepted wisdom will not impress McGrath, who has vowed to protect his right to the opening over, it is motivated by Lee's remarkable capacity to dismiss batsmen in his first over.
Lee snared a wicket with the initial delivery of the match in Australia's opening one-day outing of this tour, a Twenty20 match at Arundel in which he dismissed New Zealand skipper Stephen Fleming.
He repeated the dose last Friday against Leicestershire when he trapped opener Darren Robinson in front of his stumps with ball one, and that followed his efforts of last Australian summer when he grabbed a first-over breakthrough in six of 13 one-day internationals.
Further influencing Ponting's decision will be the fact England has a pair of left-handed openers, Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss.
"The reason we do it (open with Lee) in the one-dayers is sometimes dependent on the opposition we play," Ponting said.
"During the one-day series in Australia last year Brett had an uncanny ability to get a wicket in his first over.
"And that was generally bowling to left-handers because he can swing the ball back in early on and do it at very good pace and catch the batsmen before they get their feet moving well.
"If Brett happens to play he might take the new ball, but it's going to be pretty hard working it out of Glenn's hand."
Lee's last Test series, against India in Australia in 2004, was forgettable, when the ankle injury that eventually led to major surgery and a six-month rehabilitation troubled him increasingly and he returned disastrous figures of just eight wickets at an average of 75.
Despite that humiliation and his own admission that he under-achieved on his previous tour of England in 2001 (when he managed only nine wickets from five Tests), Lee is not motivated by vengeance.
"It's not that I think I have anything to prove to anybody, that's not what I'm about," Lee said yesterday. "I am averaging 31 in Tests and I would like to get that down to the low 20s, so that's something I'm going to work on.
"But the one thing I can definitely take out of the last 18 months is that someone has thrown me a challenge.
"I want to make sure I overcome that challenge, and I see that as a great test of character."
- ANDREW RAMSEY