Scratch team

A scratch team is a team, usually in sport, brought together on a temporary basis, composed of players who normally play for different sides. A game played between two scratch teams may be called a scratch match.

The earliest instance of the term "scratch team" recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary is a restaurant guide in 1851 (London at table, by an anonymous author, referring to "'a scratch team' of servants"). The OED also records the term "scratch match" - defined as an impromptu game played by scratch teams - being used in the same year in Rev. James Pycroft's The Cricket Field - one of the earliest books about cricket - "...that is the time that some sure, judicious batsman, whose eminence is little seen amidst the loose hitting of a scratch match, comes calmly and composedly to the wicket and makes a stand;..."