Centrals' Mitch Stanley yet to break his Orange District Cricket Association duck after six innings

A massive, colossal, gargantuan understatement.

He's in the sort of funk of which legends are made, a lean trot he's already likely to never live down but especially if it continues on Saturday afternoon.

In six innings across three grades this summer the Centrals bat, incredibly, is yet to score a run.

Not one - zip, nada, nothing, zilch.

Should he make another duck on Saturday in third grade, he'll have gone seven games - seven whole innings - without getting off the mark, and he'll make it to Christmas with the same run tally as Orange mayor Reg Kidd.

Or your nan. Or your three-month-old niece. Or Harold Holt. Or the cumulative total of the Central Western Daily sports desk - but that last one's obviously beside the point.

Speaking to Stanley, he knows he's up against the wall in a way no-one in Orange District Cricket Association has been since former CYMS skipper Hamish Finlayson kicked off the 2017-18 with three consecutive globes.

"(I'm) going to go out and try and open in Third Grade and try and get some runs," he said when asked how he'd wrench himself out of his funk, before pausing.

"At least one run."

It's not like Stanley's been hiding at the bottom of the order either, whether in his one Bathurst-Orange Inter-District Cricket appearance or in Second or Third Grade.

He started at four, has batted at five twice and padded up at seven before being demoted to number 10 and has faced little more than 40 balls for - repeat - zero runs.

Bowled, LBW, caught, bowled and caught behind have accompanied Stanley's dreaded donuts on the scorecard this summer while last week, in an improvement, he finished zero not out at the end of Centrals Wanderers' dig.

His side got beaten though, becoming their Central White clubmates' first victim of the summer.

But with no new bat, no pre-game routine changes, no Mitchell Starc-like speedsters hiding in the lower grades and nothing, really, to throw him off, what's been the cause?

"The boys reckon it's the nose ring, that's given me bad luck," he said.

"I honestly couldn't tell you what's been happening. It silly shots and (I) haven't really got any form at the moment.

"All year I've always been going out to save the innings mid-collapse and it hasn't quite worked."

Does he buy into his teammates' explanation?

"I reckon it could be the nose ring, but it could also just be stupidity," Stanley admitted, ahead of Centrals Wanderers' Third Grade clash against undefeated competition leaders Spring Hill this weekend.

His teammates have rallied behind him for the last game of the year - rallied, of course, means heckling the living daylights out of him - and are expected to give him the chance to open against the Wood Ducks at Spring Hill Oval on Saturday afternoon.

Although, taking the first ball of an innings against such a powerful side is an intimidating prospect by anyone's standards, let alone when you're trying to break a seven-innings runless streak.

You may wonder how he envisages finally getting off the mark when he's, as assumed, lying awake thinking about it at 3am? Crunching a pull shot for six? Lacing a drive through the covers for four? Squirting an edge over gully for one?

"I'm probably going to block and run," Stanley admitted.

"I'll definitely raise the bat if I get off the mark."

What if it doesn't come off? What if Stanley trudges off Spring Hill Oval with another zero next to his name? Surely it's enough to make you give the game away?

"I don't know, I'll get real angry, real unhappy. I'd (probably) put cricket aside until next year," Stanley said.

Stanley's Centrals Wanderers face Spring Hill from 1pm on Saturday afternoon, pending conditions, while in the other Third Grade games CYMS Kellys face CYMS Bourkes at Jack Brabham 4, Centrals White play the Gladstone at Country Club Oval and Cavaliers play Orange City at Anzac Park.