Cricket fielding positions have a reputation for being impenetrable, and the names do not help. Silly mid on, fine leg, third man, cow corner. There is a system underneath, and once you have it the whole field resolves at a glance.
The two halves
Everything starts from the batter. The field is split down the middle by an imaginary line running from stumps to stumps.
- The off side is the side the batter faces, in front of them as they stand.
- The leg side, also called the on side, is behind them, the side their legs are on.
Because it is defined by where the batter stands, the whole field flips for a left hander. This is why fielding sides shuffle between batters and why a left and right handed pair batting together is genuinely awkward to bowl to.
The modifiers
Most position names are a base name plus one or two modifiers, and the modifiers are consistent.
- Fine means closer to the line straight behind the wicket.
- Square means closer to a right angle from the pitch.
- Deep or long means near the boundary.
- Short means closer in than the standard position.
- Silly means dangerously close to the bat.
- Backward and forward mean behind or in front of square.
So deep backward square leg is a boundary fielder, on the leg side, behind square, near the right angle. The name is a set of directions, not a label to memorise.
The positions worth knowing
Behind the wicket, off side. The slips stand next to the wicketkeeper in a line, catching edges, numbered outward from first slip. Gully sits wider than the slips for thicker edges. Third man patrols the boundary behind them.
Square, off side. Point stands square, saving the cut shot. Cover is in front of square, and extra cover a little straighter than that. These are the positions where the best fielders usually stand, because the most catchable mishits go there.
Straight. Mid off and mid on stand either side of the bowler, around twenty yards back. Long off and long on are their boundary equivalents. Straight hit is directly behind the bowler.
Leg side. Midwicket is square-ish on the leg side, square leg is straighter across, and fine leg is behind square near the boundary. Short leg stands very close on the leg side, usually in a helmet.
And cow corner, between deep midwicket and long on, is not an official name at all. It is where an agricultural swing tends to end up, and the name stuck.
What a field tells you
The arrangement is a statement of intent, and it is readable.
Three slips and a gully means the captain expects an edge and is prepared to concede singles elsewhere to get one. That is an attacking field, and you will see it early in a Test innings when the ball is new.
Fielders spread to the boundary with nobody catching means the priority has switched to stopping runs. In the closing overs of a limited-overs innings that is simply the correct choice.
A packed leg side with a boundary rider behind square tells you the bowler intends to attack the batter's body and expects the shot to go there. A single fielder moved five yards can be the whole plan for a particular batter.
The restrictions
No more than two fielders may stand behind square on the leg side at any time, a rule introduced after a notoriously hostile leg side bowling tactic in the 1930s.
Limited-overs cricket adds fielding restrictions in the opening overs, when only a small number of fielders may stand outside the inner circle. That is what makes early attacking batting viable and why scoring rates drop when the restrictions lift.
None of this appears on a scorecard, which is the one thing a scorecard cannot capture. What it does record is the outcome, and every match in the archive has the catches credited to the fielder who took them.
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