Kent County Cricket Club

Kent County Cricket Club
One-day name: Kent Spitfires
Captain: England Robert Key
Coach: West Indies Cricket Board Jimmy Adams
Founded: 1842
Home ground: The Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence
Capacity: 15,000
Chief executive: England Jamie Clifford
First-class debut: Sussex
in 1825
at Hove
Championship wins: 7 (1 shared)
Pro40 wins: 5
FP Trophy wins: 2
Twenty20 Cup wins: 1
Official website: Official website

Kent County Cricket Club is one of the 18 first class county cricket clubs which make up the English and Welsh national cricket structure, representing the historic county of Kent. The club's limited overs team is called the Kent Spitfires after the Supermarine Spitfire.

The club plays most of its home matches at the Spitfire Ground, St Lawrence in Canterbury, but also plays some home matches at The County Cricket Ground, Beckenham and the Nevill Ground, Royal Tunbridge Wells where they host the Tunbridge Wells Cricket Week.

Honours

First XI honours

Second XI honours

Records

For Kent County Cricket Club's first-class records, see List of Kent first-class cricket records.
For Kent County Cricket Club's List A records, see List of Kent List A cricket records.
For Kent County Cricket Club's Twenty20 records, see List of Kent Twenty20 cricket records.

Most first-class runs for Kent
Qualification – 20000 runs [1]

PlayerRuns
Frank Woolley 47868
Wally Hardinge 32549
Les Ames 28951
James Seymour 26818
Arthur Fagg 26070
Colin Cowdrey 23779
Bill Ashdown 22309

Most first-class wickets for Kent
Qualification – 1000 wickets [2]

PlayerWickets
Tich Freeman 3340
Colin Blythe 2210
Derek Underwood 1951
Doug Wright 1709
Frank Woolley 1680
Arthur Fielder 1150
Alec Hearne 1018

History

Pre-1840

For details of Kent county teams before the formation of Kent County Cricket Club, see Kent county cricket teams.

Kent, jointly with Sussex, is believed to be the birthplace of cricket. It is widely held that cricket was invented by children living on the Weald in Saxon or Norman times. The game's earliest tentative reference, re creag in 1300, relates to Newenden in Kent.

Further information: History of cricket to 1725

The first definite mention of cricket in Kent concerned a match at Chevening in 1610 between teams from the Weald and the Downs.

Cricket became established in Kent during the 17th century and the earliest village matches took place before the English Civil War. It is believed that the earliest county teams were formed in the aftermath of the Restoration in 1660. In 1705, West of Kent played Chatham at Malling. The first recorded inter-county match took place in 1709 between Kent and Surrey.

Kent had strong teams throughout the 18th century, often challenging All-England. The county had several famous patrons including Lord John Sackville, his son John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset and Sir Horatio Mann. In the latter half of the 18th century, Kent and Surrey were the only counties that could realistically challenge the power of Hambledon.

In the 1822 MCC versus Kent match at Lord’s, John Willes of Kent opened the bowling and was no-balled for using a roundarm action, a style he had attempted to introduce since 1807. Willes promptly withdrew from the match and refused to play again in any important fixture. His action proved the catalyst for the so-called "roundarm revolution".

In 1837 Kent was unofficially proclaimed the "champion county" and had the most successful team through most of the 1840s. Mainstays of the Kent team in those years included Alfred Mynn, Fuller Pilch, Nicholas Wanostrocht aka "Felix", Ned Wenman and William Hillyer. William Jeffrey Prowse wrote these famous lines about the Kent side, as part of his poem In Memoriam, Alfred Mynn:

And with five such mighty cricketers, t'was but natural to win,
As Felix, Wenman, Hillyer, Fuller Pilch, and Alfred Mynn.

Post-1840

On 6 August 1842, formation of the original Kent County Cricket Club took place in Canterbury. The new Kent CCC played its initial first-class match against All-England at the White Hart Ground in Bromley on 25, 26 & 27 August 1842. In 1847 the club began using the St Lawrence Ground. On 1 March 1859, a substantial reorganisation occurred to create the present Kent CCC.

Kent enjoyed two periods of prolonged success: the first in the years before World War I, when in the space of eight seasons they were county champions four times. The pavilion at Tunbridge Wells was burned down by Suffragettes in April 1913. Though valuable records were lost the Pavilion was rebuilt in 9 weeks, the funds raised by public subscription. The bowling of Colin Blythe and the captaincy of Cloudesley Marsham, and later Ted Dillon were key factors in Kent's decade of success. They remained highly consistent until the 1930s, with high quality players such as Tich Freeman, Frank Woolley, Wally Hardinge and Les Ames all playing at the peak of their career. Kent ran up 803 for 4 dec against Essex CCC at Brentwood in 1934 with Bill Ashdown scoring 332, Ames 202* and Woolley 172. The total took seven hours, with 623 runs alone on the first day. Arthur Fagg scored two double centuries in the same match for Kent against Essex CCC at Colchester in 1938, while Woolley scored over 2,000 runs for Kent in 1935 aged 48. He retired in 1938 with 58,959 runs, 145 centuries, 2066 wickets and 1018 catches to his name. Doug Wright, who took over 2000 wickets with his brisk leg breaks and googlies between 1932 and 1957, took his 7th hat trick in 1949, the most ever.

Former Kent CCC logo

Kent did not become successful again until the 1970s, when they claimed ten domestic trophies, including the County Championship title in 1970, 1978 and a shared title in 1977. They also claimed the Benson & Hedges Cup in 1973, 1976, 1978, and the Gillette Cup in 1974. Their success was this time due to the batting of Brian Luckhurst, Asif Iqbal and Colin Cowdrey.

Kent have become well known for producing high-quality wicket-keepers. Les Ames, Godfrey Evans, Alan Knott, Paul Downton and Geraint Jones have all progressed from the Kent ranks to the English national side.

Recent history

In the 2006 season, Kent finished fifth in Division One of the County Championship while the Spitfires were fifth in the NatWest Pro40 League Division Two. On 4 August 2007, Kent won the Twenty20 Cup for the first time, defeating co-favourites Sussex in the semi-finals, captain Rob Key hitting 68 not out. In the final they defeated Gloucestershire in a see-saw game where in the final over, chasing 148, they required 13 off the last over, before making it home with 2 balls to spare, Matthew Walker hitting 45 and Darren Stevens hitting 30 not out to see the Spitfires home. Earlier in the final, Ryan McLaren got a hat-trick. On 27 September 2008, Kent were relegated from the First to the Second Division of the County Championship for the first time.

Players with most first-class appearances

Further information: List of Kent cricketers

Club presidents

Club captains

Players

Current squad

No. Name Nationality Birth date Batting Style Bowling Style Notes
Batsmen
4 Robert Key* double-dagger  England 12 May 1979 Right-handed Right arm off break Club Captain
6 Joe Denly  England 16 March 1986 Right-handed Right arm leg break
10 Alex Blake  England 25 January 1989 Left-handed Right arm medium-fast
17 Sam Northeast*  England 16 October 1989 Right-handed Right arm off break Vice-captain
23 Daniel Bell-Drummond  England 3 August 1993 Right-handed Right arm medium
30 Fabian Cowdrey  England 30 January 1993 Right-handed Slow left-arm orthodox
40 Brendan Nash* double-dagger  Jamaica 14 December 1977 Left-handed Left arm medium Kolpak registration
All-rounders
3 Darren Stevens*  England 30 April 1976 Right-handed Right arm medium
21 Ben Harmison  England 9 January 1986 Left-handed Right arm medium-fast
24 Adam Ball  England 1 March 1993 Right-handed Left arm fast-medium
25 Calum Haggett  England 30 October 1990 Left-handed Right arm medium-fast
26 Matt Coles*  England 26 May 1990 Left-handed Right arm fast-medium
Wicket-keepers
7 Ryan Davies  England 5 November 1993 Right-handed —
20 Sam Billings  England 15 June 1991 Right-handed —
Bowlers
5 Ivan Thomas  England 25 September 1991 Right-handed Right arm medium-fast
8 Mitchell Claydon  England 25 November 1982 Left-handed Right arm medium-fast
11 Imran Qayyum  England 23 May 1993 Right-handed Slow left-arm orthodox
14 Matt Hunn  England 22 March 1994 Right-handed Right arm fast-medium
15 James Tredwell* double-dagger  England 27 February 1982 Left-handed Right arm off break
18 David Griffiths  England 10 November 1985 Left-handed Right arm fast-medium
19 Sam Weller  England 21 November 1994 Right-handed Right arm fast-medium
22 Charlie Hartley  England 4 January 1994 Right-handed Right arm medium-fast
33 Adam Riley  England 23 March 1992 Right-handed Right arm off break

Notes

^ a: An unofficial seasonal title proclaimed by consensus of media and historians prior to December 1889 when the official County Championship was constituted; for titles claimed by Kent teams before the county club was founded, see Kent county cricket teams
^ b: Formerly known as the Gillette Cup (1963–1980), NatWest Trophy (1981–2000) and C&G Trophy (2001–2006)
^ c: Geraint Jones played Test Matches, One-Day Internationals and T20 Internationals for England (2004–2006) and for Papua New Guinea in the 2012 ICC World Twenty20 qualifiers

References

  1. ↑ "The Home of CricketArchive". Cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 2013-05-04.
  2. ↑ "The Home of CricketArchive". Cricketarchive.com. Retrieved 2013-05-04.
  3. ↑ Kent County Cricket Club Annual 2007. p. 268.

Bibliography

External links