Kent county cricket teams matches at Town Malling between 1836 and 1841. The expense of running county games meant that Town Malling proved too small to support a county club, despite the large attendances that games attracted, and in 1842 Pilch moved to the Beverley club at Canterbury. Kent struggled against the prominence of Sussex in the early roundarm years but then enjoyed a glorious period in the middle of the century. Rowland Bowen has recorded that a Maidstone newspaper in 1837 described a match between Kent and Nottinghamshire as for the County Championship. This is the earliest known use of the term although
Kent county cricket teams Robert Colchin ("Long Robin"), Lord John Sackville, his son John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset and Sir Horatio Mann organising teams. In July 1739, the strength of Kent as a county team was recognised by the formation of a non-international England team, loosely termed "All-England" or, more accurately, the Rest of England, to play against them. Kent at this time were led by Lord John Sackville and his team won the first All-England match on Bromley Common; the return on the Artillery Ground was drawn. In 1744, the year in which the "Laws of Cricket" were first published as