List of Kent County Cricket Club players
This is a list of cricketers who have played for Kent County Cricket Club in top-class matches. The county club has its origin in the Kent Club founded at Canterbury on 6 August 1842. A similar organisation was formed at Maidstone in 1859 and, in 1870, these two amalgamated to create the present county club. Like the Kent county teams formed by earlier organisations, including the old Town Malling club, the county club has always been classified as a top-class team. The players listed have played for the club in first-class cricket, List A cricket or Twenty20 cricket matches.
Kent county cricket teams
By the 1830s Kent sides began to dominate English cricket, winning 98 matches during the period and being declared the leading county side for six seasons out of the seven between 1837 and 1843. During this period the formation of county sides was initially focussed on Town Malling Cricket Club, backed by lawyers Thomas Selby and Silas Norton alongside William Harris, 2nd Baron Harris. Selby and Norton recruited "the best batsman in England", Fuller Pilch from Norfolk, to play at Town Malling, maintain the cricket ground and run the connected public house. Alongside other players such as Alfred Mynn, Nicholas Felix, Ned Wenman and William Hillyer, Kent teams selected by Selby played eleven 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.