Incredibly, Orange's Jamie Stedman will eclipse that on Saturday, the first game of 2020 will mark the fifth consecutive decade he's has taken the field Orange City Cricket Club.

He's got no idea who Carter is, the similarities between the two stop with their identical hairlines and Stedman is 'almost certain' someone else has probably hit that mark within the Orange District Cricket Association (ODCA) ranks, it's an achievement he's incredibly proud of.

"Knowing my luck I'll probably get hurt before then or it'll just rain on Friday and push it back another week," Stedman, a life member of his beloved Warriors, laughed.

"I think I've missed one full season since I started playing for Orange City in the 1980s and I've probably retired properly half a dozen times over the years, but I've been pretty lucky to be able to play the game I love for so long and I am really proud of that.

"It all started with World Series Cricket - the colours, the advertising, the excitement. That's where my love of the game started and that's what's kept me going and kept me playing all these years, I just love cricket and the camaraderie it brings."

Stedman's memories of playing the game stretch all the way back to those days as a youngster, when 'things were less complicated and we just played' and when he 'had a decent head of hair' - he actually described his now-gone locks as magnificent.

From mimicking his heroes in backyard Tests against his brother to learning the game as a junior, receiving his first bottle and white baggy cap when he hit the senior ranks and everything since, some of Stedman's most-treasured memories come directly from the game.

Naturally, with time comes experience and with experience comes change, all of which has combined to develop his outlook on life and the game. Marriage and kids are among the highest of highs while, of course, his almost life-ending illness in 2009 has played a huge role too.

That illness still remains somewhat of a mystery and left the 48-year-old, he's celebrating his birthday on Wednesday, in a medically-induced coma with, in his words, 'next to no chance to survive'.

"Obviously life is much bigger than cricket and those things definitely change your outlook and it does give you a new perspective on the game, for instance my kids are another reason I've kept playing," he explained.

"I wanted them to see me playing the game because I think it's really important to teach them when you commit to something, you commit and you don't let those people down, that lesson translates to life obviously as well.

"We can learn a lot from sport in those terms, the commitment and discipline it brings. The illness definitely changed me, I think with time and experience you learn a lot about yourself but I don't think anyone would argue I'm a more relaxed person than I was beforehand, I take a bit more in my stride and make the effort to try and enjoy everything.

"The biggest change from that though, I think, is that for some reason I just can't bowl anymore. I mean physically, I just cannot do it anymore and I have no idea why.

"I've taken five-wicket hauls in first grade and an eight-wicket haul in representative cricket but the kids I'm playing with now just think I'm shit because I can't hit the pitch, then the club's annual reports come out and I'm near the top in our wicket-taking lists and they're just like 'that's not you, it can't be you'."

With such longevity, there's few better than Stedman to speak to about the game's transformation since the 1980s, particularly because he refuses to buy into a classic 'everything was better in my day' frame of mind.

"I'd like to think my day's still going," Stedman, who also won Central West Rugby Union titles with Orange Emus, laughed.

"A lot's changed, a lot, some things were better years ago but then on the flip side some things now are much better. At the top level fielding is one thing. There was some magnificent fielders over the years but these days they're all incredible.

"That's one frustrating thing, personally, as well. Years ago I was a really good fielder, I wanted the ball to come to me every ball and I'd swallow any catches. These days I desperately hope it comes nowhere near me.

"This will sound disrespectful but it definitely isn't meant that way because I admire everyone who gets out there week-by-week and has a crack, but the standard of cricket here in Orange has dropped significantly over the years.

"There's so many factors that come into that obviously because years and years ago it's just what you did, as people we weren't as busy and you trained and played every weekend, you just did it.

"Another big thing is how fast bowlers were years ago. There's still some pretty quick guys getting around now but there isn't as many of them."

The quickest?

"Michael Hillier was seriously fast, I remember watching him put the wind up Steve Smith and Steve Waugh at Wade Park in a Toohey's Cup game. Steve Waugh came off and immediately said 'what is he doing here?'," Stedman said.

"Kent French bowled like the wind too. I remember he bowled me a ball that crushed the shoulder of my bat and landed about a metre inside the boundary. I wasn't wearing a helmet and obviously the next one was even quicker and pretty well directed.

"You'd be hard to miss this melon anyway, that's partly why I wasn't wearing a helmet, they never made them big enough."

What about the best players he's seen in the ODCA, or to have come from the local ranks?

"I'm not sure I'd be able to rank them definitively because there really has been so many incredible players I've played with and against," Stedman said.

"Kev and Steve Geyer would definitely be close. Kev went on to play First-Class cricket and I still think Steve should've, Steve actually came back and played for Kinross recently too when his young bloke was coming through up there.

"I played with the likes of Jeff Culverson and [Darryl Rosser] and I played with Franky Weymouth at his absolute best too. Watching Shane Frecklington bat was always amazing, the way he played off his pads.

"More recently guys like Sandy Rogers and Chris Tremain at Kinross, they both almost took my head off a few times and have gone on to bigger things, but that's tough. Really tough.

"I can say without any shadow of a doubt the best technique I've seen from anyone in Orange belongs to Phoebe Litchfield though. I played with her dad Andrew and was lucky enough to play against Phoebe a few times.

"She really is just so, so good and I hope she continues on the path she's on, she could be something really special in Australian cricket."

Ask Stedman to give you the highlights from his career and he'll rattle 50 off the top of his head without blinking an eye, but a very distinct sparkle arrives in his baby blues when recalling one particular season.

"We won all three senior grades in 1992-93 and that was a really, really special season. The club was at its absolute best then, we trained and played together, we celebrated together and we spent all our time together off the field too," Stedman said.

"It was a really, really similar feeling a couple of seasons ago when we did the same (in 2017-18) and being able to captain the second grade side in that premiership was special, considering I'd been there the last time we did it.

"There's been a lot of really special times, another I remember is living with Scotty Traves who's still playing first grade in Bathurst with St Pat's (Old Boys), we had a lot of fun and were just cricket fanatics.

"There's funny ones too, obviously. The amount of stick I've copped for the Aero pads I wear stays firmly in mind, they've been described as bar fridges but my word are they good protection for a bloke who gets hit on the pads a lot.

"Both Orange City and the ODCA had to change the criteria for their All-Rounder of the Year awards because of me too, I kind of like that one. I scored a bucketload of runs in back-to-back summers and won the awards without bowling a ball, so they changed it to make sure an actual all-rounder won it.

"I recall being run out for a diamond duck on the first ball of an innings trying to run a five as well, I think I'd be one of the only guys to have ever done that."

Stedman was succinct when asked if there was one piece of advice he'd give to youngsters now, or even to himself if he go back all those years.

"One piece of advice? Enjoy it, have fun, because that's why we play. Winning is great but if you don't enjoy it you're letting yourself down," he said, philosophically.

"That and train for the little things in the game, fielding mainly, the moments that will matter."

And, of course, potentially the most prudent question, when will Stedman call it quits?

"I've said it's my last summer for years now but honestly I'm probably the fittest I have been in a long time now and I'm still enjoying it so, who knows really," Stedman said, adding he'd love to play senior cricket with his son too.

"One thing I've always made a point of trying to do is to continue Carl Sharpe's legacy, what he created at Orange City and for cricket, and keep teaching kids how we should carry ourselves on and off the field and how we should behave and I'll keep doing that."

Stedman is expected to be named in Orange City's second grade side this weekend, and if so he'll mark the achievement against long-time, fierce rivals CYMS.