The 20-year-old Otago seam bowler was raised in Nelson and has played most of his cricket in the area.
But when he could not make the contract list for Central Districts this season, he got an opportunity to trial for the Volts and picked up one of the last spots.
He made his debut for his adopted province in December. He played in a couple of one-dayers.
But today is the big one. He will make his first-class debut for the Volts.
"It is pretty awesome, especially coming up against your old team. My one-day debut was against CD as well.
"I grew up playing age group or Central Districts, so I grew up around a few of their guys."
One of those guys is experienced Stags opener Greg Hay.
"I’m quite looking forward to bowling to Greg Hay, to be fair.
"He was someone you’d look up to because obviously he was the captain of our Hawke Cup team.
"It should be a nice match-up moving from bowling to him in the nets to a real game. It should be quite cool."
And quite a challenge.
Hay is one of those unsung players who has stitched together an impressive record without attracting any interest from the national team.
In 85 first-class games the 36-year-old right-hander has scored 5850 runs at an average of 42.39, including 13 centuries.
Hay’s record against Otago is even more impressive. In 14 games he has scored 1218 runs at an average of 58, including four centuries.
If McKay can snick out his former team-mate he will be very popular with his new ones.
The right-arm medium-pacer just chuckled when asked where he felt Hay had a weakness.
"Nothing too much because he is a quality player."
McKay, who is studying sports and exercise at Otago Polytechnic, plays for North East Valley in the club competition.
He has found the standard of club cricket in Dunedin "is way higher than back home" in Nelson.
"Most weeks here you are playing against guys from the wider Volts squad whereas back home there was only three of us in the wider CD group.
"The competition was not super strong, so it has been a really nice change on that front."
McKay has also had seven games for Otago A this summer and has claimed 12 wickets at 28.50 apiece.
Canterbury has wrapped up the Plunket Shield with two rounds remaining. That leaves everyone else in the competition playing for professional pride.
Other than promoting McKay from 12th man to the starting XI, Otago has stuck with the same squad.
The Stags have also named an unchanged squad for the penultimate match of the season.
The match will be Tom Bruce’s 50th first-class appearance and he is just 56 runs shy of reaching the 3000-run milestone.
The game gets under way at the later time of 11am.
Plunket Shield, Dunedin, 11am
Otago: Hamish Rutherford, Anaru Kitchen, Mitch Renwick, Nick Kelly, Dale Phillips, Michael Rippon, Max Chu, Travis Muller, Matt Bacon, Michael Rae, Jarrod McKay, Angus McKenzie.
Central Districts: George Worker, Greg Hay (c), Ben Smith, Brad Schmulian, Tom Bruce, Dane Cleaver, Doug Bracewell, Josh Clarkson, Blair Tickner, Jayden Lennox, Ray Toole, Joey Field.
