Confused about the difference between Gully and Point? Want to learn all about cricket fielding positions with a map and detailed description? Then you have landed at the right place. Fielding is a highly significant, but often underrated aspect of cricket. Unlike batting and bowling, it doesn’t quite its desired due. This, despite the fact that from Brian Close to Eknath Solkar and Jonty Rhodes to Ravindra Jadeja, the gentleman’s game has produced some awe-inspiring fielding talent. While many cricketers are specialized fielders — i.e. they excel while fielding at particular positions like Slip or Gully, someone like current Indian skipper Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja are safe fieldsmen all-round, which means they can patrol the close-in field as well as the boundary area. In this feature, we will enlighten you about the various fielding positions in the game.
Dividing field positions based on distance
Fielding positions are basically divided into three parts: Close Catching, Inner Ring and Outfield.
Close Catching
Close catchers are fielders who are positioned near the batsman and are primarily in place to take catches. Usually, they are not more than 15 yards away from the batsman. The positions include Slips, Leg-slip, Silly Point, and Short-leg. Batsmen can be caught in the Slips while looking to play away from the body or can be dismissed at Silly Point and Short-leg while looking to defend.
Inner Ring
The inner ring refers to the 30-yard circle. The field positions here include Gully, Leg Gully, Point, Square Leg, Cover, Mid-wicket, Mid-off and Mid-on. The fielders here have a dual role, that of stopping the ball from going past them, thereby saving runs, as well as holding on to catches that come their way. Most of the times, they require to possess quick reflexes as batsmen who hit the ball in the air go at it very aggressively, and often the reaction time is rather limited.
Outfield
The fielders protecting the boundary regions constitute the outfield. Long-off and Long-on positioned to the left and right of the straight boundary respectively, are the two prominent fielding positions in the outfield. These fielders are expected to have safe hands as, apart from saving boundaries, a lot of catches also come their way, particularly at the end of an innings in limited-overs matches, when batsmen are looking to hit over the top.
Angles and variations
For a right-handed batsman, field positions can be narrowed down to two halves. Off-side and On-side (also referred to as leg side). The Offside is the field placed towards the left of a right-handed batsman, and the On-side is field placement made towards the right. In the case of a left-handed batsman, this is exactly the opposite. While the field positions like Gully, Cover, Square leg, and Mid-wicket define the angle from the batsman when preceded by an adjective, it refers to the distance from the batsman — for example, Silly Mid-on, Short Cover, Deep Square Leg, Backward Point, and so on.
Here, Silly is very close to the batsman, Short is relatively close to the batsman, Mid is midpoint to the boundary while Long and Deep are positions closer to the boundary. From a batsman’s point of view, Square is near the line of the batting crease, Backward is behind the batsman’s crease, and Forward is in front of the batsman’s crease. Further, Fine refers to the area that is nearer to the line of the pitch, and Wide to the region which is away from the line of the pitch. Thus, we have Fine Leg, Wide Long-on, and more.
Complete List of Cricket Fielding Positions positions
Now that we know about the various field positions in cricket, and the manner of their placements, here’s a compilation of the complete list of field positions in cricket.
- 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
When a defect lg Mansfield’s he is called short leg if he falls down they say he slip