East Kent and West Kent were titles sometimes given to two cricket teams from their respective areas of the English county of Kent which generally played in matches prior to the foundation of the official Kent County Cricket Club in the mid 19th century. West Kent (or West of Kent) teams have been recorded from 1705, but there is no known record of an East Kent team until 1781. There were seven major matches from 1781 to 1790 in which teams of this type faced each other, although there is doubt about the match titles with sources using different team names.
The first Kent Cricket Club was founded in Canterbury on 6 August 1842, formed out of the Beverley Cricket Club, and played its first match against All-England three weeks later. In 1859 a second county club was formed at Maidstone to support the Canterbury club, the two often being known as the East Kent and West Kent clubs respectively.[1][2][3][4] The two clubs amalgamated in 1870 to form the modern day Kent County Cricket Club.[1][2][5]
Teams called East Kent and West Kent played each other twice in 1856 in minor matches. Those two matches are the last known to involve an East Kent team. West Kent became the name of a 19th-century club which played minor cricket only and was for a long time based at Chislehurst Cricket Club, with which it ultimately amalgamated in 1980 as the Chislehurst and West Kent Cricket Club.[6]