Cricket Fielding Positions Explained: Beginner Guide

Most people searching for a cricket fielding positions explained diagram want one thing: to be able to look at a field and know what they are looking at. This page gives you the diagram in words, with compass bearings on a clock face, distances in yards, and two complete eleven-player fields set out fielder by fielder. Take a sheet of A4 and a pen and you can draw every one of them yourself in about ten minutes, which is a far better way of learning the map than staring at a picture.

The reason the names feel like gibberish at first is that they are not names of places on the ground at all. They are names of places relative to the batter. Move a left-hander to the crease and the whole map mirrors, without a single blade of grass changing. Once that clicks, roughly forty position names collapse into a system with three variables, and you can work out any of them from first principles.

How to draw the diagram in five steps

Do this before reading the position lists. It takes two minutes and everything afterwards will make sense.

1. Draw an oval filling most of the page. English grounds are rarely circular — the boundary at an international venue sits between about 65 and 90 yards from the middle of the square, and it is usually shorter square than straight.
2. Draw the pitch as a narrow rectangle running from the top of the oval to just past the middle. It is 22 yards long and 10 feet wide, and the striker stands at the lower end.
3. Mark the batter with a dot at the lower end of that rectangle. This dot is the centre of the whole system.
4. Draw the inner circle: two half-circles of 30 yards radius drawn round each middle stump, joined by two straight lines down the sides. It looks like a running track laid over the pitch. This is the fielding circle, and it only matters in limited-overs cricket.
5. Orient the page as the television does: the camera sits behind the bowler's arm, so the bowler runs in from the top of the page towards your dot. In that orientation, for a right-handed batter the off side is the left half of your page and the leg side is the right half.

Everything below assumes that page and a right-handed batter. If you would rather learn the theory of why captains choose these arrangements, the longer field-setting guide covers the tactics; this page is the map.

The three variables in every position name

Every name is built from up to three pieces of information, and if you know all three you know where to put the dot.

Which half of the ground. The off side is the half the batter's bat swings across, the leg or on side is the half behind their legs. Positions on the off side rarely say so — point, cover and gully are all understood to be off-side names. Leg-side positions usually carry the word leg, or are one of a small set of learned names such as midwicket.

In front of or behind square. Draw a line through the batter at right angles to the pitch and extend it to the boundary on both sides. Anything on the bowler's side of that line is in front of square or forward; anything on the wicketkeeper's side is behind square or backward. "Square" on its own means level with the batter, on that line.

How far away. Four words do all the work:

• Silly — inside the arc of the batter's shot, two to five yards away, helmet compulsory.
• Short — closer than the standard version, typically fifteen to twenty yards.
• Unmarked — the standard depth, usually twenty-five to thirty yards, inside the circle.
• Deep or long — on or close to the rope.

Two further modifiers describe the angle behind the batter. Fine means close to the line of the stumps, so a fine leg stands almost directly behind the keeper's shoulder. Wide or square means further round towards the side of the ground.

The clock-face map

Put twelve o'clock straight up the page past the bowler and six o'clock straight down behind the wicketkeeper. Nine o'clock is square on the off side, three o'clock is square on the leg side. Now every position has a bearing, and this table is your diagram.

Position	Clock bearing	Distance from bat	Side	What it is there for
Wicketkeeper	6:00	2–20 yd	—	Everything behind the stumps
First slip	6:30	12–18 yd	Off	The thin edge
Second, third, fourth slip	6:35–6:55	12–18 yd	Off	Progressively thicker edges
Fly slip	7:00	30–35 yd	Off	The edge that falls short of third
Gully	7:30	15–20 yd	Off	The squirted edge and the fend
Third man	6:45	Boundary	Off	Edges past the cordon, the ramp
Short third	6:45	25 yd	Off	Saving the single behind square
Backward point	8:30	25 yd	Off	The cut and the steer
Point	9:00	25 yd	Off	The square cut and square drive
Silly point	9:30	3–5 yd	Off	Bat-pad catches against spin
Cover	10:00	28 yd	Off	The cover drive
Extra cover	10:30	28 yd	Off	The drive played slightly early
Mid-off	11:15	30 yd	Off	The straight drive
Long off	11:30	Boundary	Off	The lofted straight drive
Long on	12:30	Boundary	Leg	The lofted drive down the ground
Mid-on	12:45	30 yd	Leg	The straight push
Cow corner	1:15	Boundary	Leg	The slog and the heave
Midwicket	1:45	28 yd	Leg	The whip off the pads
Deep midwicket	1:45	Boundary	Leg	The pull and the slog sweep
Short leg	2:30	3–5 yd	Leg	Bat-pad off the inside edge
Square leg	3:00	25 yd	Leg	The clip and the pull
Deep square leg	3:00	Boundary	Leg	The pulled boundary
Backward square leg	3:30	25 yd	Leg	The top edge of the pull
Leg gully	4:30	12–15 yd	Leg	The fend at the ribs
Long leg	4:30	Boundary	Leg	The hook, played squarer
Fine leg	5:15	Boundary	Leg	The glance and the top-edged hook
Short fine leg	5:00	25 yd	Leg	The single off the pads
Leg slip	5:20	12–18 yd	Leg	The leading edge and the glance

Two bearings to hold on to as anchors. Six o'clock and twelve o'clock are the straight lines through the stumps; everything close to them is described as fine or straight. Three and nine o'clock are square; everything close to them is described as square. Learn those four and you can place any name you hear on Test Match Special without looking it up.

The three depth bands, and where the ball actually goes

Fielders are not spread evenly. They cluster in three bands, and the bands correspond to three different things a captain is trying to do.

The catching band, 2 to 20 yards. Slips, gully, leg slip, short leg and silly point. Nobody here is trying to stop runs — a ball past them is four every time. They exist purely to convert an error into a wicket. In an English Test the cordon is at its widest with a new Dukes ball on a Thursday morning at Headingley and has usually shrunk to one slip by the second afternoon.

The ring, 20 to 30 yards. Point, cover, extra cover, mid-off, mid-on, midwicket, square leg. Their job is the single. A well-set ring makes the batter play a risky stroke to score at all, which is the whole basis of one-day bowling.

The rope, 60 to 90 yards. Third man, long off, long on, deep midwicket, deep square leg, fine leg and their neighbours. They turn fours into twos and ones. In a Twenty20 innings the boundary riders will handle more of the ball than the entire ring combined.

Note that the same fielder can be described three ways depending on band: point, backward point and deep backward point are one bearing at three depths. When somebody says "sweeper", they mean the deep version of cover or point, out on the rope saving four.

Walking round the off side

Start behind the batter and walk anticlockwise round the boundary of your diagram.

The wicketkeeper sits at 6:00, standing back fifteen to twenty yards to fast bowling and right up on the stumps to spin. Standing up is a tactical move as much as a technical one, and the art of wicketkeeping is worth its own read.

Slips fan out from the keeper towards 7:00, numbered outwards from the one nearest him. They stand close enough that a catch reaches them at chest height on the first bounce of the parabola, which in practice means twelve yards to spin and eighteen to genuine pace. Gully at 7:30 is the squarer catcher, taking the ball fended off the splice or slashed at with hard hands.

Behind them on the rope, third man at about 6:45 has become one of the busiest positions in the modern game because batters deliberately target the area over the cordon. Short third, the same bearing at 25 yards, is the white-ball version that stops the single.

Round to 8:30 and 9:00 you have backward point and point, square or just behind, the cut-shot positions. Push in to 9:30 and a few yards from the bat and you have silly point, a helmet-and-shinpads job used almost only against spin.

In front of square, cover at 10:00 and extra cover at 10:30 guard the drive, with mid-off at 11:15 straighter and closer to the bowler's follow-through. Mid-off is traditionally where the senior professional stands, because it is the only ring position within talking distance of the bowler at the end of every over.

Long off at 11:30 completes the off side on the rope.

Walking round the leg side

Now the mirror, clockwise from twelve.

Long on at 12:30 and mid-on at 12:45 are the exact reflections of long off and mid-off. Long on and long off together form the most important pair of boundary fielders in limited-overs cricket, because the straight lofted hit is the safest big shot in the game.

Cow corner at 1:15 is a nickname rather than an official position — the gap between long on and deep midwicket where agricultural hitting tends to land. Midwicket at 1:45 covers the flick off the pads and the shot played across the line; deep midwicket is the same bearing on the rope and is where most pulled and slog-swept sixes go.

Short leg at 2:30, a couple of yards from the batter's front pad, is the least popular job in cricket. It exists to catch the inside edge that pops off pad when the ball is turning in, and it is why an off-spinner's field against a right-hander looks so lopsided. The different types of spin determine which side of the wicket those catchers go.

Square leg at 3:00 sits level with the batter, and is also where the square-leg umpire stands, though on the opposite side of the pitch to the fielder if necessary. Backward square leg at 3:30 and leg gully at 4:30 pick up the top edge and the fend at the ribs.

Behind square on the rope, long leg at 4:30 and fine leg at 5:15 differ only in angle: long leg is squarer, fine leg is closer to the line of the stumps. Short fine leg at 5:00 inside the circle is one of the most fought-over patches of grass in white-ball cricket, because the nudge off the hip is the easiest single in the game.

Leg slip at 5:20 completes the circuit, the leg-side twin of first slip, used when the ball is swinging in.

Left-handers flip the whole diagram

This is the single thing that confuses beginners most, and it is completely mechanical. When a left-hander takes strike, mirror your page left to right. The off side becomes the right half; the leg side becomes the left half. Every clock bearing becomes twelve minus itself: point moves from 9:00 to 3:00, fine leg from 5:15 to 6:45, midwicket from 1:45 to 10:15.

The positions have not moved. The batter has turned round, so the labels have swapped ends. This is why a fielding side facing a left-hand and right-hand pair rotating strike spends so much of the over walking, and why captains at a ground with a big square boundary on one side — the Kia Oval's is famously long — care so much about which end each batter faces.

Two complete fields you can draw right now

Nine outfielders, one wicketkeeper, one bowler. That is the whole allocation, and it is more restrictive than it sounds. Here are two real arrangements, set out so you can plot every dot.

A new-ball Test field, seam bowling, right-handed batter. The classic English first-morning field. Nobody on the boundary except one man behind square.

#	Position	Bearing	Depth
1	Wicketkeeper	6:00	18 yd
2	First slip	6:30	16 yd
3	Second slip	6:40	16 yd
4	Third slip	6:50	16 yd
5	Gully	7:30	18 yd
6	Point	9:00	25 yd
7	Cover	10:00	28 yd
8	Mid-off	11:15	30 yd
9	Mid-on	12:45	30 yd
10	Fine leg	5:15	Boundary
11	Bowler	Running in from 12:00	—

A Twenty20 death-overs field, five out, right-handed batter. Every boundary that can be closed is closed, and the ring is set to make the single hard.

#	Position	Bearing	Depth
1	Wicketkeeper	6:00	20 yd
2	Short third	6:45	25 yd
3	Deep point	8:30	Boundary
4	Cover	10:00	25 yd
5	Long off	11:30	Boundary
6	Long on	12:30	Boundary
7	Midwicket	1:45	25 yd
8	Deep midwicket	1:45	Boundary
9	Deep square leg	3:00	Boundary
10	Short fine leg	5:00	25 yd
11	Bowler	Running in from 12:00	—

Count the second field's leg side and you will find five fielders there, which is the maximum permitted, and exactly one of them behind square, which is well inside the limit of two. Doing that count is a habit worth acquiring, because it tells you immediately whether a field you have drawn is legal.

Where a captain is not allowed to put fielders

Four constraints bind every field, and they are the reason certain arrangements you might imagine are impossible.

No more than two fielders behind square on the leg side at the moment the bowler delivers. Breach it and the umpire calls no ball. This is a Law rather than a competition regulation, written into the code the MCC maintains after a long-ago controversy over short-pitched bowling into the body with a stacked leg-side field. It guarantees that the hook and the pull always have somewhere to go.

No more than five fielders on the leg side in total, a playing condition rather than a Law, which closes the loophole of packing the leg side in front of square instead.

No encroachment on the pitch. No fielder other than the bowler may have any part of themselves on or over the pitch until the ball has been played or has passed the bat, which is why short leg crouches on the edge of the strip and not on it.

No significant movement after the bowler starts running in. A fielder may walk in with the bowler, but a deliberate late shift designed to deceive the striker is unfair play and the umpire will call dead ball.

On top of those, limited-overs cricket adds the circle. In a fifty-over match only two fielders may stand outside it for the first ten overs, four for overs eleven to forty and five thereafter; in a Twenty20 it is two for the first six overs and five afterwards. The powerplay rules across the formats set out the detail, and the domestic versions used in the Vitality Blast follow the international pattern closely. Test cricket has no circle at all, which is why a captain may legally put all nine outfielders on the rope if they want to.

Frequently asked questions

How many fielding positions are there in cricket?

There is no fixed number, because the names are combinations of side, angle and depth rather than a closed list. Around forty names are in regular use, and the table above covers the ones you will actually hear in commentary at an English ground.

Where exactly is silly mid on?

Straight and very close on the leg side — about the one o'clock bearing at three to five yards, mirroring silly mid-off on the other side of the bowler's follow-through. Both are spin positions and both require a helmet.

Why is it called cow corner?

Because the area between long on and deep midwicket is where an agricultural swing across the line tends to end up, and the phrase suggests a corner of a field where cattle might be grazing undisturbed. It is not a formal position and no scorer will ever write it down.

What is the 30-yard circle for?

It forces gaps. If a set number of fielders must stay inside it, the boundary cannot be fully protected, so attacking batting becomes mathematically sensible rather than merely brave. Test cricket has no such circle, which is the biggest single visual difference between the formats.

How far is the boundary from the batter?

Between roughly 65 and 90 yards from the centre of the pitch at international grounds, and often less at county venues. Straight boundaries at Taunton and Chelmsford are noticeably short; the square boundaries at Emirates Old Trafford are long. Ground shape genuinely changes which fields are worth setting, as the guide to English Test grounds makes clear.

Does the fielding side have to tell the batter where the fielders are?

No. The batter is expected to look. What the fielding side may not do is move somebody significantly after the bowler has begun their run-up, which is the practical protection.

Where is the best place to sit to see the field properly?

Square of the wicket and high up. From behind the arm you see the ball but not the shape; from square at height you see the whole diagram at once, which is why the upper tiers at Lord's and the Hollies at Edgbaston are so good for reading a captain's plan. Our pick of the grounds for fans covers where to sit at each venue, the story of Lord's explains the famous slope that makes fields there subtly different, and the English season month by month tells you when to go. If you want the other two rules newcomers always ask about, start with how LBW works and read on into England's seam bowling tradition, which is the reason the slip cordon exists here at all. Anyone learning the positions to play rather than to watch will find the entry points in the club game, and the rest of our coverage sits in the England cricket section.