Kent County Cricket Club in 1906
After dominating county cricket in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, the players who made up Kent's great side of the 1840s had retired and by the 1850s the county had been reduced to often having to amalgamate with other sides to produce a challenging team. The formation of a County Club in Maidstone in 1859 and the amalgamation of this with the original Kent Cricket Club in 1870 to create the modern Kent County Cricket Club, provided the basis for re-emergence, although the club suffered from financial instability and Lord Harris's view was that Kent could not hope to compete at the level it once had throughout the 1870s and 1880s. When the County Championship was formerly established in 1890 Kent were initially able to finish only in mid table.
Kent County Cricket Club in 2018
Kent competed in the 2017–18 Regional Super50, a List A tournament that is part of the West Indian domestic season, after accepting an invitation from the West Indies Cricket Board. This was the second consecutive year that the county competed in the competition which ran from 30 January to 24 February. In the absence of club captain Sam Billings who was with the England cricket team in Australia and New Zealand, the side was captained by Joe Denly and, in Denly's absence at the end of the tour, Will Gidman. Head coach Matt Walker was also working with the England T20 team and assistant coach Allan Donald and Second XI coach Min Patel led the tour.