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.”
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