Kent County Cricket Club
As the team built around Pilch retired from cricket the fortunes of the club declined, the county sometimes forced to field teams of up to 16 or to combine with other clubs in order to compete. Financial difficulties followed and on 1 March 1859 a second county club was formed in Maidstone to support the Canterbury-based club. The two clubs, the Canterbury club known as East Kent, the Maidstone club as West Kent, co-operated to an extent, although the relationship was later described as "anything but satisfactory". The standard of cricket played by the county side, generally organised by the West Kent club, remained poor and the county found it difficult to attract either the best amateur players or professionals to appear, many amateurs only willing to appear during Canterbury Cricket Week. Financial difficulties also caused problems producing competitive sides. An 1870 meeting chaired by the 3rd Lord Harris at the Bull Inn at Rochester saw the two clubs merge to form the present day Kent County Cricket Club.
Kent county cricket teams
The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) considers Kent to be one of cricket's "major counties" throughout its entire history and rates all Kent county matches in the 18th and 19th centuries, as well as many played by teams called East Kent or West Kent, as first-class. The ACS have explained that any match between a strong Kent eleven and another top-class team justifies the classification but caution is needed with nomenclature because of the different committees and sponsors who organised the games and would sometimes use team names other than "Kent".