Teams
General
In considering how teams were set up in the Eighteenth Century, it is worth considering some comments by Timothy McCann:
There is a regrettable tendency for historians of local cricket clubs to equate the earliest reference to cricket being played in the area with the formation of the cricket club. The view of the present writer had been that [cricket] clubs were largely a Victorian invention and Arthur Haygarth seemed to support it. His list of some of the most famous cricket clubs starts with Hambledon in about 1760 (the Hambledon Club first appears in this volume playing a Sussex team in 1768 (220) and includes only the Sevenoaks Vine Club and the Marylebone Club before 1800.1
I think McCann is right to draw our attention to the consideration that to talk of Cricket Clubs in the Eighteenth Century as we now understand the term is somewhat misleading. Nonetheless, the were teams who played in the names of towns or villages who operated with a more or less consistent pool of players, so they have some of the characteristics of clubs. Nonetheless, I shall generally refer to teams rather than clubs as I feel that is a touch more accurate.
In a great many cases, however, Eighteenth Century Cricket teams have no records attached to them beyond records of matches they played and knowledge of where they played their matches. For this reason, there is often not a great deal more to be said of several significant teams beyond what is already included in the relevant pages on the grounds. Sevenoaks and Bourne more or less fall into this category.