text: On the eve of the County Championship season, Charlie Hemphrey has finally secured the professional cricket contract he has been striving for over the past decade. Only it is not with one of the 18 teams that make up our domestic game. For Hemphrey, a 25-year-old former Folkestone grammar school pupil who suffered habitual rejection in his attempts to breakthrough into the English system, has an amazing story to tell, after forging an unlikely first-class career in Australia. It has been an extraordinary journey for Hemphrey from a second XI debut for Kent at 15 to his recent status as the first Englishman to hit a Sheffield Shield hundred since John Hampshire for Tasmania in 1978. That feat was accomplished in Queensland's final match of the 2014-15 season, a victory over South Australia at the Gabba. Charlie Hemphrey during his Kent career (left) and as a youngster for Notts under 11s where he scored his first hundred (right) When he emigrated to Brisbane 18 months ago, he admits his desire for a shot at the top level had regressed into an 'unrealistic dream'. That it became a reality was due to polar opposite experiences to the ones he endured over here. Every time he was faced with a door it opened whereas previously they had slammed in his face. Kent, Derbyshire and Essex all knocked him back. A stunning first season down under – in which he finished third top scorer in Queensland's grade competition – was followed by a state second XI debut last October. The following month he struck 140 out of 297 all out in the first innings of a game against New South Wales. It put him in the frame for higher honours when the Shield season reopened post-Big Bash and a new year injury to Australia batsman Usman Khawaja gave him his chance. On February 7 he pulled on the maroon cap for the first time. James Pattinson dismissed him for a second-ball duck but Queensland – showing numerous changes in the wake of Stuart Law's removal as coach – crushed eventual champions Victoria by an innings. The following week Hemphrey hit 58 and Tasmania were defeated in Hobart by a similar scoreline. Two matches, two victories; the Pom had hit the jackpot. Queensland were not going to change a winning side and that very fact secured his future. Matches 5 . Innings 8 . Not Outs 0 . Runs 310 . Highest Innings Score 118 . Batting Average 38.75 . Balls Faced 809 . Batting Strike Rate 38.31 . 100s 1 . 50s 1 . 4s 37 . 6s 0 . 'The system over here guarantees you a minimum contract if you play three state games,' Hemphrey explained to Sportsmail. 'Cricket Australia upgrade you to a 12-month deal which is about $60,000 (£30,000), so after three games I told work I was leaving. I knew I was going to be paid well and the match payments on top are good at just over $4,500 (£2300).' Hemphrey immediately gave up his early morning job for Virgin at Brisbane Airport, co-ordinating their aircraft loads out on the ramps in sweltering heat. A fortnight later, in his fifth appearance for Queensland, he struck 118 on his adopted home ground. The celebratory removal of his helmet and glance to the heavens at reaching three figures an acknowledgement of his late Belgian grandfather Jim Charlier, who while not a cricket aficionado had witnessed his lowest ebb six years earlier when he made 163 for Kent seconds against MCC Young Cricketers. 'I am not really an extrovert, I keep my emotions fairly intact but what happened when I was released from Kent came back to me. A week after basically being told that I wasn't good enough my granddad came to watch and it was great afterwards listening to him talk about how I'd played from his non-cricket perspective,' Hemphrey explained. 'He passed away last year and so when I got to 100 I looked up and thought about him. I knew how proud he would have been. To me, scoring a first-class hundred in Australia is quite something but he taught me a lot about life, and I have to say I was a lot more nervous when I stood up to speak at his funeral than I was when I was on 97.' Although raised in Kent, Hemphrey was born in Doncaster and Geoffrey Boycott, arguably the greatest Yorkshire batsman of them all, would have doffed his cap at the price he places on his wicket. According to Hemphrey, a combination of leaving outside off-stump and playing the ball late is his modus operandi. 'The one thing I have learned over here is that the best time to bat is in the second half of the day, so getting through the first half has been important. Then I have cashed in.' Hemphrey's rise is all the more remarkable given that the three counties in his first incarnation as a cricketer were at least as interested in his off-spin (he has not bowled this past winter due to a labral tear in his shoulder). At Canterbury, it meant the presence of James Tredwell blocked his path. Although the three South Africans and two Pakistanis in a Kent side that made consecutive Twenty20 finals days in 2008 and 2009, when he held two summer contracts, were probably more to blame for his lack of opportunities. 'The club had other priorities, there was little focus on the second XI,' he says. In contrast, his performances were catching the eyes of Justin Sterns and Trevor Hohns - state coach and convenor of selectors respectively - not long after Australia Twenty20 international Chris Lynn, with whom a friendship developed during a previous three-year stint in Queensland grade cricket, lured him to Toombul. Naturally, there is a tinge of bitterness that his break has come on the other side of the globe: 'I just feel that you can't decide someone's career at the age of 19. It's too early. Different people develop at different rates. Look at Ryan Harris, Nathan Lyon, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen. Those four all hit their prime in their late twenties.' Not that he completely rules out a return: 'I don't want to close any doors. I am open to anything and at the end of the day cricket is a very short career in the grad scheme of things.' But for now he is running with the Bulls as English cricket's unsung export.
target: Charlie Hemphrey fulfilled an 'unrealistic dream' to become a first-class cricketer .
  The 25-year-old was rejected consistently by teams in the English system .
  Hemphrey enjoyed a successful first season in Australia with Queensland .
  He is the first Englishman to hit a Sheffield Shield hundred since 1978 .
  The ex-Folkestone grammar school pupil didn't rule out a return to England .