Sheridon Gumbs spent five years in the academy at Surrey. Every ball counts. It is a slogan made for The Hundred competition - the pyrotechnic-charged, music-pumping version of cricket bankrolled by billionaires.

It is a world away from what you get on the fringes of the professional game, where first-class cricket meets well-manicured English village grounds that so often host second XI matches. At least, you would think so. For some, playing for the 'twos' is a tightrope cricketing existence and a last shot at trying to make it as a professional. Every ball really could count.

But unlike The Hundred, where top earner Harry Brook will pocket £465,000 for a month's work, some second XI players on trial runs with County Championship sides are rocking up to play in matches on the UK daily minimum wage of just over £100, with a little more on top for expenses. That's what it was like for Sheridon Gumbs as he toiled day-to-day, game-by-game trying to prove himself at Leicestershire during a trial period that spanned a season and a half.

For 18 months there was no contract, just that day rate, as the former Surrey youngster and England Under-19 international tried to piece together a career with a hit and hope attitude. "You don't have that safety net because coaches are under no obligation to let you know how you're getting on or how you're sizing up to be part of that first team," the 22-year-old told BBC Sport. "To me, it was go to training and if you're picked, rock up, try your best, try to perform and just take it and play it by ear.

"Yeah, 18 months is a long time, but you've just got to trust it. "Nothing easy is worth having and it's professional sport - it's not meant to be easy. It's cut-throat. So if you really want it, then go out and get it. It's a gamble, I guess." Sheridon Gumbs travelled to Australia to play for England Under-19s in 2023.

But there is a reason Gumbs stuck at it with the East Midlands side when rival County Championship clubs began to show interest in him – and why that gamble would eventually pay off. It was just days before the lucrative Hundred competition started last week that Gumbs' willingness to persevere was rewarded with a three-and-a-half-year deal at Leicestershire.

"There were a lot of people last year that sort of said 'what's going on'? Gumbs recalled. "I was putting runs on the board, having a lot of success and people were like, 'oh, Leicestershire are messing you around, this, that and the other'. But I had nothing, I almost felt in debt to Leicestershire. They reached me out of this hole and granted me this opportunity."

A succession of setbacks as a teenager meant Gumbs almost gave up on his career before it ever really got going. He was released by Surrey just months after returning from Australia where he played for the England Under-19 team in 2023. A trial run at Hampshire followed - but ended after just a few matches.

And at that point, he even thought about dropping out of Loughborough University – the one place he wanted to study sports management because it is the home of the national cricket performance centre. "I almost put cricket to bed after that, because at the back of my mind I was thinking, almost as an excuse, what more could I have done or shown?" Gumbs said. "I obviously wasn't getting any sort of results anywhere. Cricket's a very mental sport and I think having that break and realising that I essentially owe it to myself to pursue it as a career and keep going, keep knocking on doors, has helped me in the long run."

Gumbs signs long-term Leicestershire contract. Listen to BBC Radio Leicester's Talking Foxes podcast. Gumbs' older brother Shelvin, an all-rounder that had trial spells with the second XI teams at Hampshire and Middlesex in the past, came up with much-needed encouragement at the time.

Crucially, he also helped get his sibling a shot with Leicestershire - with Foxes second XI coach Dips Patel being a former team-mate of Shelvin's at Loughborough Town. "I won't be naive, I know I was very lucky with the opportunity that Dips granted me by contacting my brother because getting a chance of second XI cricket to start with is very hard," Gumbs said. "There's got to be a gap in a team and you've almost got to have a bit of luck and be in the right place at the right time."

Gumbs grinned as he recalled the approach from Patel being a "kick in the bum" that helped him get "switched back on".

All the latest Leicestershire CCC news. Patel had watched Gumbs years earlier as a junior, training in the nets with his father Wilson, and had long tracked his career. He knew what player he was potentially recruiting. The challenge was getting Gumbs to stand out in what he freely admits can be a "manic" environment - where players on trial are thrust into a team alongside academy youngsters trying to pick their way up the ranks, and established County Championship players who may be in the second XI to regain fitness or form.

"There's a lot of emotions and there's a lot of different characters in that dressing room which you have to try to manage," Patel said. "It can be a selfish environment because, in a sense, you are playing for someone's job aren't you? Every trialist that walks through the door will have players on tenterhooks and thinking 'oh my God, he could take my spot here'. And it's all right being under that pressure, because that is what professional sport is about. It's about giving them opportunities. You just have to be a coach and dad to everyone, and just be very straight with them."

And while Gumbs piled on the runs almost from the get-go, his is a story of persistence as much as potential - and Patel knows it. "Sheridan is a rare story for the fact he stuck with it for so long," Patel said. "I've seen lads like him, who come out of an academy and are playing for the second team, and then all of sudden they are not given a deal and they throw it all away. But it is understandable because they've got to go out into the world, earn money, and get a proper job."

Gumbs, whose only previous experience of first-team cricket came in a brief One-Day Cup spell with Surrey in 2022, finally got his chance to call cricket his job when handed a one-month deal with Leicestershire earlier this season. He scored 49 in his second innings on his first-class debut for Leicestershire against Essex in June, then a week later he went on to play a part in the Foxes' milestone victory - their first in the top flight for 8,318 days - against Yorkshire.

While Gumbs' trial period may seem exceptionally long, it is not necessarily unusual - with Kashif Ali previously outlining he did "four or five years" of trials, external across a number of counties before establishing himself at Worcestershire. Even Essex pace bowler Jamie Porter worked as a recruitment consultant, external while he played for the club's second XI when his early career stalled. And he has gone on to take 592 first-class wickets and counting across a 12-year career.

Patel does not hesitate when saying he sees a "15-year career" in Gumbs' future. And Leicestershire director of cricket Claude Henderson and head coach Alfonso Thomas have invested in that possibility, handing the top-order batter a deal that will run until the winter of 2029. Patel says Gumbs should no longer feel as if "he is walking on eggshells" when he now "has a job to do".

In recent years, the Professional Cricketers' Association (PCA) has worked with first-class counties to establish guidelines around the low-paid, high-stakes working environment that second XI trialists deal with. Before 2021, there was no obligation for clubs to pay trialists when they featured.

Previously, the opportunity and hope that came from a game at that level was seen as enough. An element of that still exists, with players not being paid for the first five days of a trial - which ensures not every chance taken to look at fresh talent has to be budgeted for. Rich Hudson, PCA director of cricket operations, described second XI cricket as a "melting pot of different people, dynamics and tensions".

"You've got the pro trying to get himself back into form or come back from injury, and you've got the young kid in the academy who's desperately trying to prove he's worth a contract and learn his way and then there is the Sheridon-type player who is fighting for his life to get another contract and prove himself," Hudson said.

"We also understand the financial pressures of the game, which means that decision makers are constantly having to make calls that come with natural tension between doing what's right to support people in that environment and high-performance success, where the first team needs to be performing in the Championship and the T20 Blast."

And with Leicestershire's support, Gumbs says he is once again dreaming about what he can deliver as a cricketer. "Making my Blast debut and just being in and around the lads, training in that sort of T20 environment, I 100% think there is going to be a push with my white-ball cricket and I want to see how far I go with that," he added. "With the red ball, I want to wear the England badge again. My brother's always said, 'you're never that far away', but I've always thought on the flip side and almost thought, I'm miles away. This contract, and everything else that comes with it, is big and Leicestershire have granted me that sort of belief that maybe I'm not that far away whatsoever."