Cricket Field Positions Explained: Build Any Name From Three Clues

Every guide you will find has cricket field positions explained as a labelled circle with thirty-five names crammed around the edge. You stare at it, you nod, and ten minutes later you still cannot place gully. The problem is that the diagram asks you to memorise. You do not need to. The names are not arbitrary labels, they are built from three clues, and once you know the clues you can work out any position you hear on commentary without looking anything up.

Cricket field positions explained in four sentences

A cricket fielding position name is built from three pieces of information: which side of the pitch the fielder is on, how far from the bat they stand, and what angle they sit at relative to the batter. There are eleven fielders including the bowler and the wicketkeeper, so only nine other positions are ever occupied at once out of the thirty-plus that have names. Learn the three clues and you can name any position on sight instead of memorising a diagram.

Clue one: which side

The ground is split lengthways into two halves by an imaginary line running down the pitch.

Off side: the half the batter's chest and face point towards in their stance.
Leg side (also called the on side): the half behind the batter's legs and backside.

This is the piece most beginners get wrong, because the two halves are defined by the batter, not by the ground. Nothing is painted on the grass. A right-hander and a left-hander standing in the same crease have their off sides on opposite halves of the field.

Positions on the off side: slip, gully, point, cover, extra cover, mid-off, third man, long off. Positions on the leg side: leg slip, leg gully, square leg, short leg, midwicket, mid-on, fine leg, long on.

Notice something. Almost every leg side name contains the word leg, or it is the mirror of an off side name with on swapped in. Mid-off and mid-on. Long off and long on. That is not coincidence, it is the naming system doing the work for you.

Clue two: how deep

Four words tell you distance from the bat, and they are consistent everywhere:

Silly or short: close enough to catch a bat-pad deflection. Silly point, short leg.
No modifier: the standard catching or saving position, roughly on or just inside the thirty-yard circle. Point, cover, midwicket.
Deep: pushed back towards the boundary rope. Deep cover, deep midwicket, deep point.
Long: on the boundary, and reserved mostly for the straight positions. Long off, long on, long leg.

So deep cover is the same angle as cover, just forty yards further back. That single rule collapses about a third of the names on any diagram.

Clue three: the angle

The last clue is where the fielder sits on the arc, from directly behind the batter round to directly in front. Start behind the stumps on the off side and walk all the way round:

Wicketkeeper, then the slips numbered outwards from the keeper: first slip, second slip, third slip.
Gully, a little wider and squarer than the slips, where a thick edge flies.
Third man, the same angle as gully but on the boundary.
Point, square of the wicket on the off side, level with the batter.
Cover, then extra cover, angling forwards towards the bowler.
Mid-off, almost straight but still on the off side, then long off on the rope behind it.
Cross the line. Mid-on, then long on behind it.
Midwicket, the leg side mirror of cover.
Square leg, level with the batter, the leg side mirror of point.
Fine leg behind square, and leg slip and leg gully if a fielder is up close.

Two words worth pinning down. Square means level with the batter's crease, at ninety degrees to the pitch. Fine means close to the line of the pitch itself, so fine leg is behind the batter and near straight, while square leg is out to the side. Commentators use finer and squarer as instructions, and now you know they mean rotate towards the pitch or away from it.

The nine that actually matter

Thirty-five names exist, which is why most guides with cricket field positions explained in the title feel like revision for an exam nobody sits. In a real short-format innings the same handful do almost all the work, because a ball has to travel somewhere and the odds are heavily skewed. If you are learning, learn these first:

Wicketkeeper. Not optional.
Slip. Catches the edge from a good length ball outside off.
Point and cover. Between them they stop most square drives and cuts.
Mid-off and mid-on. The two straight blockers who kill the easy single and the drive.
Midwicket. Where flicks off the hip and mistimed pulls go.
Square leg. The leg side gate that costs you runs if it is empty.
Long on or deep midwicket. In T20 this is the highest traffic boundary on the ground, because the heave over the leg side is the shot most amateurs reach for first.

If you cover those, you have covered the majority of scoring areas in a twenty over game. Everything else is a specialist deployed for one plan against one batter.

Two rules that limit where fielders can stand

Most guides skip this, and it is the part that actually changes what you can do.

Only two fielders may be behind square on the leg side. Excluding the wicketkeeper, no more than two fielders may be behind the popping crease on the on side at the instant of delivery. Break it and the umpire calls no ball. That one rule is why a bowler cannot simply stack the leg side against a batter who only scores there.

In limited overs cricket, a circle restricts the rest. A thirty yard circle is marked from each set of stumps. In men's T20 internationals, only two fielders may stand outside it during the first six overs, then five for the rest of the innings. In men's ODIs it runs two outside for the first ten overs, four for overs eleven to forty, and five for the last ten. So a captain in a powerplay is choosing which two boundary riders they can afford, not where to put everybody.

Positions flip for a left-hander

This catches out more new players than anything else. Because the off side is defined by where the batter is facing, every name mirrors when a left-hander comes on strike. The fielder does not move and their name changes. Stand still at what was midwicket for a right-hander and you are now at cover.

This is why bowling to a left and right handed pair is genuinely harder, and why field changes between balls look fussy when you are watching without knowing the reason. The angles have not moved. The definitions have.

Put it to use in a live match

Reading it is one thing. Cricket field positions explained on a page is a memory test, and in a match it is a decision. The names only stick when you have had a ball go somewhere and felt the cost. That is the gap a live 1v1 closes fast, because you are batting or bowling against a real person rather than a scripted bot that always plays the same shot.

On howzatlive you can play cricket online in your browser with no download and no install. One player bats, the other bowls, in a 5, 10 or 20 over match in day or night conditions, with chat during the game. Start a quick match against whoever is waiting, or send a private link to a friend and settle the argument about who reads a length better. You can create a free account to get a rated Scale badge from 0 to 10 after five rated matches, and beating a stronger opponent moves you up faster than grinding easy wins.

If nobody is around, three bots are available at Gully, Club and Academy difficulty. They are useful for grooving one thing, though results against them count at half weight, are capped at a few per day, and cannot take you past Scale 3. Above that you need real opponents, which is the point.

Spend one innings naming the position every ball goes to before you look at the score. You will have the map in two games, not two weeks.

Check the leaderboard to see who is worth chasing, and browse the blog for the companion pieces on field settings, reading a bowler's length and scoring. Questions about the game, contact us.