Cricket Field Settings Explained: Where to Put Your Fielders

Field settings are the part of cricket that looks like decoration and is actually the whole argument. Nine fielders, one bowler, one keeper, and an entire boundary to protect with them. Where you put those nine says what you think the batter will do — and a good batter reads it back at you.

This is a practical guide to field placement: the names, what each position is for, and how to set a field that does something rather than just standing there.

Off side and leg side

Everything starts here, and it is the bit newcomers get backwards.

Stand where the batter stands, facing the bowler. The off side is the side your bat is on. The leg side (or on side) is the side behind you.

For a right-handed batter, the off side is to the bowler's left. For a left-hander, every one of those positions mirrors. This is why a captain has to reset the field when a left-hander comes in, and why a well-run over against a left-right pair looks like constant fidgeting. It is not fidgeting.

The positions you actually need

Forget the exotica. About a dozen names cover almost every field you will ever set.

Close catchers

Slip — beside the keeper, off side. Catches the edge. First, second, third slip fan outward.
Gully — wider than slip. Catches the thick edge that flies squarer.
Short leg — very close, leg side, square of the batter. For the ball that pops off the glove.

The ring (saving singles, roughly 30 yards out)

Point — square on the off side. Stops the cut.
Cover — off side, in front of square. Stops the drive.
Mid-off and mid-on — either side of the bowler, straight. The two most-used positions in cricket.
Midwicket — leg side, in front of square. Stops the flick.
Square leg — leg side, square. Stops the pull that stays down.

The boundary riders

Third man — behind square on the off side. Catches the edge that beats slip.
Fine leg — behind square on the leg side. For the glance and the top-edged hook.
Deep cover, deep midwicket, long-on, long-off — the ring positions pushed back to the rope.

Reading a field before you face it

The field is public information the bowler has handed you. Use it.

Count the off side. Six or seven fielders on the off side with a packed ring means the plan is to bowl outside off and dry you up. The scoring option is straight or square on the leg side — and that is exactly where they have left space.

Look for the gap they left on purpose. A deep square leg with nobody at fine leg is not an accident. They want you to hook. There is a catcher waiting.

Slips tell you the plan. Two or three slips means they are bowling for the edge and will attack the top of off stump. No slips and a spread ring means they have given up on getting you out and are strangling runs instead.

Nobody at mid-on is an invitation. Usually a trap — bowl full, tempt the drive, and there is a catcher at short cover you did not notice.

Setting a field that means something

If you are the one bowling, three rules will take you a long way.

1. Field to the ball you are actually going to bowl. A packed off-side ring and a leg-stump line is two plans arguing. Decide first where the ball is going, then put the fielders where that ball gets hit.

2. Protect the shot they play best, not the shot you fear most. Watch where their runs have come from. Three fours through cover means cover needs help, whatever your instinct says about the hook.

3. Buy a wicket when you are ahead. If they are stuck on 12 off 20 balls, that is when you bring a fielder up, offer a single that is not really a single, and make them do something rash. Fields should change as the pressure changes.

In the game

Howzat Live lets you set the field yourself before you bowl, and it mirrors automatically for a left-handed batter, so the setting you designed for a right-hander does not end up inside-out when a lefty walks in.

The fielders are drawn where they actually are. If you can see the gap at midwicket, the gap is genuinely there, and hitting it genuinely scores. That sounds obvious and a surprising number of cricket games get it wrong.

The fastest way to learn field placement is to be beaten by one. Play a few overs, notice where you keep getting caught, and then set that same field yourself when you bowl.

Play a match — or read how multiplayer works if you have not faced a real opponent yet.