![Brisbane Cricket Ground DSC00042 first-ball (5205777225)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/28/Brisbane_Cricket_Ground_DSC00042_first-ball_%285205777225%29.jpg)
In
cricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...
, a slip
fielder (collectively, a ''slip cordon'' or ''the slips'') is placed behind the
batsman
In cricket, batting is the act or skill of hitting the ball with a bat to score runs and prevent the loss of one's wicket. Any player who is currently batting is, since September 2021, officially referred to as a batter (historically, the ...
on the
off side
The off side is a particular half of the field in cricket.
From the point of view of a right-handed batsman facing the bowler, it is the right-hand side of the field, or the half of the field in front of the right-handed batsman when he or sh ...
of the field. They are placed with the aim of
catching an
edged ball which is beyond the
wicket-keeper
The wicket-keeper in the sport of cricket is the player on the fielding side who stands behind the wicket or stumps being watchful of the batsman and ready to take a catch, stump the batsman out and run out a batsman when occasion arises. Th ...
's reach. Many teams employ two or three slips (numbered from the slip fielder closest to the wicket-keeper: first slip, second slip, etc.). A ''floating slip'' is sometimes employed, usually in limited over games, who patrols an area in the slip cordon that would ordinarily be occupied by more than one fielder. The slip cordon's distance from the batsman increases with the pace of the bowler; generally they will be marginally further away from the batsman than the wicket-keeper is. Because of the resulting geometry, spin bowlers generally have fewer slips in the cordon than a fast bowler would in an equivalent game situation.
As fielding in the slips requires quick reflexes and sure hands, usually the most adept catchers in the team will make up the slip cordon. Most slip fielders are
top order batsmen. Specialist slip fielders are sometimes called "slippers".
The term ''slips'' is also used to refer to the area of the field where the slip cordon stands, or n
th slip used specifically to refer to one slip fielder's position—e.g., a ball may be described as being edged through third slip if it goes where a third slip would otherwise have been.
Famous slip fielders
With the most catches in test cricket, former Indian captain
Rahul Dravid
Rahul Sharad Dravid (; born 11 January 1973) is an Indian cricket coach and former captain of the Indian national team, currently serving as its head coach. Prior to his appointment to the senior men's national team, Dravid was the Head of ...
is considered one of the greatest slip fielders of all time.
Mark Waugh
Mark Edward Waugh (born 2 June 1965) is an Australian cricket commentator and former international cricketer, who represented Australia in Test matches from early 1991 to late 2002, after previously making his One Day International (ODI) debu ...
would probably be considered the best of all time, with other brilliant exponents of the craft including
Wally Hammond
Walter Reginald Hammond (19 June 1903 – 1 July 1965) was an English first-class cricketer who played for Gloucestershire in a career that lasted from 1920 to 1951. Beginning as a professional, he later became an amateur and was appointed cap ...
,
Brian Lara
Brian Charles Lara, (born 2 May 1969) is a Trinidadian former international cricketer, widely acknowledged as one of the greatest batsmen of all time. He topped the Test batting rankings on several occasions and holds several cricketing reco ...
,
Sunil Gavaskar
Sunil Manohar Gavaskar (Marathi pronunciation: uniːl ɡaːʋəskəɾ ; born 10 July 1949), is an Indian cricket commentator and former cricketer who represented India and Bombay from 1971 to 1987. Gavaskar is acknowledged as one of the grea ...
,
Shane Warne
Shane Keith Warne (13 September 1969 – 4 March 2022) was an Australian international cricketer, whose career ran from 1991 to 2007. Warne played as a right-arm leg spin bowler and a right-handed batsman for Victoria, Hampshire and Australia ...
,
Michael Clarke, Sir
Garfield Sobers
Sir Garfield St Aubrun Sobers, (born 28 July 1936), also known as Sir Gary or Sir Garry Sobers, is a former cricketer who played for the West Indies between 1954 and 1974. A highly skilled bowler, an aggressive batsman and an excellent fielder, ...
,
Bobby Simpson,
Ian Chappell
Ian Michael Chappell (born 26 September 1943) is a former cricketer who played for South Australia and Australia. He captained Australia between 1971 and 1975 before taking a central role in the breakaway World Series Cricket organisation. Born ...
,
Jacques Kallis
Jacques Henry Kallis (born 16 October 1975) is a South African cricket coach and former cricketer. Widely regarded as one of the greatest cricketers of all time and as South Africa's greatest batsman ever, he is a right-handed batsman and righ ...
,
Brian McMillan
Brian Mervin McMillan (born 22 December 1963) played 38 Test matches and 78 One Day Internationals for South Africa from 1991 to 1998. He was rated by many as the best all-rounder in the world in the mid-1990s, and won South African Cricket ...
,
Mark Taylor,
Ricky Ponting
Ricky Thomas Ponting (born 19 December 1974) is an Australian cricket coach, commentator, and former cricketer. Ponting was captain of the Australian national team during its "golden era", between 2004 and 2011 in Test cricket and 2002 and 20 ...
,
VVS Laxman
Vangipurapu Venkata Sai Laxman (; born 1 November 1974) is a former Indian international cricketer and a former cricket commentator and pundit. A right-hand batsman known for his elegant stroke play, Laxman played as a middle-order batsman in T ...
,
Mahela Jayawardene
Denagamage Praboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardene ( si, දෙනගමගේ ප්රබෝත් මහේල ද සිල්වා ජයවර්ධන; born 27 May 1977) is a former Sri Lankan cricketer who is the current consultant coach ...
,
Stephen Fleming
Stephen Paul Fleming (born 1 April 1973) is a New Zealand cricket coach and former captain of the New Zealand national cricket team, who is the current head coach of Indian Premier League team Chennai Super Kings. He is considered one of the g ...
,
Younis Khan
Mohammad Younis Khan PP SI (Urdu: ; Pashto: ; born 29 November 1977) is a Pakistani professional cricket coach and former cricketer and captain of the Pakistan national cricket team in all three formats of the game, and is widely regarded as ...
and
Matthew Hayden
Matthew Lawrence Hayden (born 29 October 1971) is an Australian cricket commentator and former cricketer. His career spanned fifteen years. Hayden was a powerful and aggressive left-handed batting order (cricket)#opening batsman, opening batsm ...
, Sir
Ian Botham
Ian Terence Botham, Baron Botham, (born 24 November 1955) is an English cricket commentator, member of the House of Lords, a former cricketer who has been chairman of Durham County Cricket Club since 2017 and charity fundraiser.
Hailed as one ...
.
Gully
![Cricketfieldingpositions](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/be/Cricketfieldingpositions.jpg)
The gully fielder is an extension of the line of slips and fields almost square to the batsman; gully is also the name given to that area of the field. A fielder standing at gully would be standing on the imaginary straight line that extends from the on-side corner of batsman's
popping crease
In the sport of cricket, the crease is a certain area demarcated by white lines painted or chalked on the field of play, and pursuant to the rules of cricket they help determine legal play in different ways for the fielding and batting side. They ...
to middle stump towards the slip cordon. The position of ''gully'' was invented in the 1880s by
Arthur Jones, who later became
England captain, at
Bedford Modern School
Bedford Modern School (often called BMS) is a Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference independent school in Bedford, England. The school has its origins in Bedford Charity, The Harpur Trust, born from the financial endowment, endowments le ...
in
Bedford
Bedford is a market town in Bedfordshire, England. At the 2011 Census, the population of the Bedford built-up area (including Biddenham and Kempston) was 106,940, making it the second-largest settlement in Bedfordshire, behind Luton, whilst ...
. It was quickly adopted by EHD Sewell at
Bedford School
:''Bedford School is not to be confused with Bedford Girls' School, Bedford High School, Bedford Modern School, Old Bedford School in Bedford, Texas or Bedford Academy in Bedford, Nova Scotia.''
Bedford School is a public school (English indep ...
and then gained in popularity thereafter.
Off theory
Enticing the batsman to edge and hit a catch to the wicket-keeper or slips is the standard wicket-taking tactic in
off theory
Off theory is a bowling tactic in the sport of cricket. The term ''off theory'' is somewhat archaic and seldom used any more, but the basic tactic still plays a part in modern cricket.
Off theory involves concentrating the line of the bowling atta ...
. To do so, the bowler tries to make the ball deviate off its expected line away from the batsman's body on the off-side.
Outswinger
An outswinger is a type of delivery of the ball in the sport of cricket. In such a delivery the ball curves—or "swings"—out and away from the batter's body and the wicket. By contrast, an inswinger swings in toward the batter and the wicket. ...
s or
leg cutter
A leg cutter is a type of delivery in the sport of cricket. It is bowled by fast bowlers.
A bowler releases a normal spin delivery with the wrist locked in position and the first two fingers positioned on top of the cricket ball, giving it spi ...
s, or the standard
leg spinner
Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in cricket. A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action. The leg spinner's normal delivery causes the ball to spin from right to left (from the bowler's perspective) when the ball bounces on the ...
are delivery types that have this effect. Unsurprisingly, bowlers bowling these deliveries effectively generally have larger slip cordons than those who are not.
On occasion, four or five slips are called for.
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
used seven slips in the first
Test
Test(s), testing, or TEST may refer to:
* Test (assessment), an educational assessment intended to measure the respondents' knowledge or other abilities
Arts and entertainment
* ''Test'' (2013 film), an American film
* ''Test'' (2014 film), ...
against
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Greater A ...
in
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
in 2004;
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
went further and used the maximum of nine slips against
Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...
's lower order batsmen in a
One Day International
A One Day International (ODI) is a form of limited overs cricket, played between two teams with international status, in which each team faces a fixed number of overs, currently 50, with the game lasting up to 9 hours. The Cricket World C ...
in 2001 (the two non-slips fieldsmen in this example were the wicket-keeper and the bowler).
Leg slip
A fielder in the equivalent position on the
on side
The leg side, or on side, is defined to be a particular half of the field used to play the sport of cricket. It is the side of the field that corresponds to the batsman's non-dominant hand, from their perspective.
From the point of view of a righ ...
of the wicket-keeper is known as a leg slip; this is considerably less common than the off-side slip, and for a team to employ more than one leg slip is highly unusual. It is illegal, under Law 41.5, to have more than two fielders in the area between square leg and long stop, to prevent the fielding team from making use of
bodyline
Bodyline, also known as fast leg theory bowling, was a cricketing tactic devised by the English cricket team for their 1932–33 Ashes tour of Australia. It was designed to combat the extraordinary batting skill of Australia's leading batsman, ...
tactics.
Writing in ''
The Cricketers of My Time'' (1833),
John Nyren
John Nyren (15 December 1764 – 30 June 1837) was an English cricketer and author. Nyren made 16 known appearances in first-class cricket from 1787 to 1817. He achieved lasting fame as the author of '' The Cricketers of My Time'', which was fir ...
of
Hambledon hints at the origin of the word "slips" when he describes the function of a long stop as a fielder who is required to cover any slips from the bat, both to the leg and the off-side.
References
*''The Cricket Captains of England'' by
Alan Gibson
Norman Alan Stewart Gibson (28 May 1923 – 10 April 1997) was an English journalist, writer and radio broadcaster, best known for his work in connection with cricket, though he also sometimes covered football and rugby union. At various times ...
,
{{Cricket positions
Fielding (cricket)
Cricket terminology
Partial squatting position