Kent

Cricket is generally believed to have originated from children's bat-and-ball games in the Weald and the North and South Downs of Kent and Sussex. These counties, along with Surrey, were among the earliest centres of the sport. Records indicate that cricket was played in Kent during the 17th century, although a match in 1705, probably at Town Malling, is the earliest that can be definitely recorded within the county.

The earliest known match involving county teams, or teams using county names, was Kent versus Surrey at Dartford Brent on Wednesday, 29 June 1709. However, these early "inter-county matches" were likely inter-parish contests involving villages on either side of the county boundary. Dartford was a prominent club in the first half of the 18th century, and the 1709 match is the earliest known mention of Dartford Brent as a venue. Three matches between Kent and Sussex in 1728 are considered the first properly representative county matches. Teams under the patronage of landowners such as Edwin Stead of Dartford and Lord John Sackville, who established the Sevenoaks Vine ground on his Knole Park estate, became increasingly representative of Kent as a county. In 1744, a Kent team organised by Sackville played England at the Artillery Ground, a match commemorated in a poem by James Love. Under the patronage of Sackville's son, John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset, and Sir Horatio Mann, Kent continued to field strong teams throughout the last quarter of the 18th century, emerging, alongside Surrey, as the main challengers to Hampshire teams organised primarily by the Hambledon Club. In 1787, with Dorset and Mann involved, an attempt was made to form a Kent County Club at Coxheath, near Maidstone, but it failed because the parties could not agree on the location. Inter-county matches declined towards the end of the 18th century, possibly as a result of a lack of investment during the Napoleonic Wars, although Kent teams continued to play matches, including four against England in 1800. Inter-county matches had not been played since 1796. They resumed in June 1825, when Kent met Sussex at Brighton's Royal New Ground, with a return at Hawkhurst Moor. The fixtures, organised by the Hawkhurst club in Kent and the Brighton in Sussex, were repeated in 1826. A second attempt to form a county club was made during the 1830s at Town Malling, backed by lawyers Thomas Selby and Silas Norton, alongside George Harris, 3rd Baron Harris.