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Craig HillCricket Tips #1: The Field
May 4th 2006 14:19
Cricket is a game of precision and elegance, yet for a lot of people starting out there are a lot of things that make them associate cricket with words like: boring, confusing, what's going on? what kind of game is this? BORING!. So, I've decided to start a few posts specialising as a kind of 'Dummies Guide to Cricket' for those who are either new or just not 100% sure about some of the concepts of the game.
The first 'playing the game' post deals with fielding positions. A lot of people laugh when they hear the word 'gully' and 'silly', especially when they find out they are associated with cricket. Sure, it must be a Pommy thing maybe, but I was never around to actually find out why the inventors of the sport decided to give such ridiculous names to fielding positions, but at least it gives people like me the chance to refer to myself as a kind of landform. Anyway, I hope this table here explains a bit for you...
http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/s9903543/cricket-field-positions.gif
Wonderful, so now you're looking at some positions with fancy names like mid-wicket, gully, point, fine leg, etc. Some other things you might want to know about the 'naming' of positions are as below:
a) When someone, whether it be Richie Benaud, your coach, your captain, your mate or your dog, talks about the 'leg side' (well, it pretty much self-explanatory), it means they are referring to the side of the field which the batsmen's legs are on. In other words, a right handed batsmen's (he holds the bat with the right hand on the bottom, thus right handed) leg side will be to his/her left. This is also known as the 'onside' (as you can see from the image). This leaves the offside, which is obviously the opposite side from the leg side. In essence, these two terms basically split the field into left and right areas.
b) Right, getting to the silly bits. A position is deemed silly when they are extremely close to the bat, looking for a ball that is lobbed up. But if you've ever felt a cricket ball, you know it's pretty silly to stand 5m in front of the batsman, cos he/she can obviously giving you the belting of your life. Thus, if you enjoy fielding 'silly', well then you've got nuts. On the contrary, a position is called 'deep' when it is furthest away from the bat - pretty self-explanatory.
c) So, what the hell do they mean when they tell you to go finer or squarer? Well it's pretty simple, to move in a finer direction, you basically keep moving in a direction so that you're going to be behind the stumps. The person instructing you will tell you stop when they feel that you are 'fine' enough (ah, the many jokes you can make with that). So, quite obviously, move squarer means you're moving in a position facing the front of the stumps. And finally, directly 'square' is any position that is in line with the batting/popping crease (the line the batsman basically stands on).
Anyway, with these in mind you can start to recognise positions on field. The best way to learn is to play the game yourself and have someone physically put you in these positions. If you're good enough, you can even claim the spot as your own.
It does feel fantastic to know that you're a 'gully'.......... haha *runs away*
The first 'playing the game' post deals with fielding positions. A lot of people laugh when they hear the word 'gully' and 'silly', especially when they find out they are associated with cricket. Sure, it must be a Pommy thing maybe, but I was never around to actually find out why the inventors of the sport decided to give such ridiculous names to fielding positions, but at least it gives people like me the chance to refer to myself as a kind of landform. Anyway, I hope this table here explains a bit for you...
http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/s9903543/cricket-field-positions.gif
Wonderful, so now you're looking at some positions with fancy names like mid-wicket, gully, point, fine leg, etc. Some other things you might want to know about the 'naming' of positions are as below:
a) When someone, whether it be Richie Benaud, your coach, your captain, your mate or your dog, talks about the 'leg side' (well, it pretty much self-explanatory), it means they are referring to the side of the field which the batsmen's legs are on. In other words, a right handed batsmen's (he holds the bat with the right hand on the bottom, thus right handed) leg side will be to his/her left. This is also known as the 'onside' (as you can see from the image). This leaves the offside, which is obviously the opposite side from the leg side. In essence, these two terms basically split the field into left and right areas.
The beauties of being a 'gully'
b) Right, getting to the silly bits. A position is deemed silly when they are extremely close to the bat, looking for a ball that is lobbed up. But if you've ever felt a cricket ball, you know it's pretty silly to stand 5m in front of the batsman, cos he/she can obviously giving you the belting of your life. Thus, if you enjoy fielding 'silly', well then you've got nuts. On the contrary, a position is called 'deep' when it is furthest away from the bat - pretty self-explanatory.
c) So, what the hell do they mean when they tell you to go finer or squarer? Well it's pretty simple, to move in a finer direction, you basically keep moving in a direction so that you're going to be behind the stumps. The person instructing you will tell you stop when they feel that you are 'fine' enough (ah, the many jokes you can make with that). So, quite obviously, move squarer means you're moving in a position facing the front of the stumps. And finally, directly 'square' is any position that is in line with the batting/popping crease (the line the batsman basically stands on).
Anyway, with these in mind you can start to recognise positions on field. The best way to learn is to play the game yourself and have someone physically put you in these positions. If you're good enough, you can even claim the spot as your own.
It does feel fantastic to know that you're a 'gully'.......... haha *runs away*
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Comment by Arif-Uz-Zaman
The Game of cricket has to maintain its originality and not lost the charm of the days when it started to be played internationally in late 19th century. The formats like twenty-20 are something which, though may earn the money fopr the orginasers but are robbing the game of its charm and the skill which cricket requires from players. Thus these days you can watch a batsman scoring runs and getting applase from the crowd for even his bad shots or a bowler gettng quick wickets at the fag end of the innings not because of his bowling prowess but the fact that the batsman want to score quick runs. So the format of cricket which snatches from the game it's originality and traditions shouls be played under some limit and the international status granted to such matches also needs to be reviewed time and again.
ARIF-UZ-ZAMAN
Karachi-PAKISTAN