A guide to where fielders are placed
Learning fielding positions is important whether you are a player or a spectator. Players need to know where they are being placed by the captain and spectators can enhance their enjoyment, particularly if they are listening to Test Match Special on the radio. Only nine fielding positions can be used at any given time since the bowler and wicket-keeper are fixed positions.
List of fielding positions
- Wicket Keeper
- First Slip
- Second slip
- Third Slip
- Fly Slip
- Long Stop
- Third man
- Gully
- Deep Gully
- Silly Point
- Point
- Deep Point
- Cover Sweeper
- Cover Point
- Extra Cover
- Deep Extra Cover
- Silly Mid Off
- Mid Off
- Long Off
- Straight Hit
- Silly Mid On
- Mid On
- Long On
- Forward Short Leg
- Short Mid Wicket
- Mid Wicket
- Deep Mid Wicket
- Sweeper
- Short Square Leg
- Square Leg
- Deep Square Leg
- Leg Gully
- Long Leg
- Leg Slip
- Short Fine Leg
- Deep Fine Leg
Working out the cricket fielding positions
Most of the positions are named roughly according to a system of polar coordinates…
One word (Leg, Cover, Mid-wicket) specifies the angle from the batsman, and is optionally preceded by an adjective describing the distance from the batsman (silly, short, deep or long).
- Leg refers to the Leg side which is the side of the batsman’s leg
- On refers to the On side which is batsman’s leg side too
- Off refers to the batsman’s off side which is the opposite of the leg side
Distances of the fielding positions from the batsman are described as:
- Silly is very close
- Short is quite close
- Mid is a mid point to the boundary
- Long and Deep are closer to the boundary
The angle from the batsmen are described as:
- Square is along an imaginary extension of the popping crease
- Backward behind square and the batsmen
- Forward in front of square and the batsmen
- Fine closer to an extension of an imaginary line along the middle of the pitch bisecting the stumps
- Wide further from an extension of an imaginary line along the middle of the pitch bisecting the stumps