Slip (cricket)

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partial squatting position
.
Three slips and a wicket-keeper (to the right). They are some distance from the batsman due to the pace of the bowler.

In

edged ball which is beyond the wicket-keeper
'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".[1]

The term slips is also used to refer to the area of the field where the slip cordon stands, or nth 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 is considered one of the greatest slip fielders of all time. Mark Waugh would probably be considered the best of all time, with other brilliant exponents of the craft including Wally Hammond, Brian Lara, Sunil Gavaskar, Shane Warne, Michael Clarke, Sir Garfield Sobers, Bobby Simpson, Ian Chappell, Jacques Kallis, Brian McMillan, Mark Taylor, Ricky Ponting, VVS Laxman, Mahela Jayawardene, Stephen Fleming, Younis Khan, Matthew Hayden, Sir Ian Botham and Steve Smith.

Gully

For the version of street cricket commonly played in the Indian subcontinent, see
Gully cricket
.
Fielding positions for a right-handed batsman, showing slips, gully and leg slip.

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

England captain, at Bedford Modern School in Bedford. It was quickly adopted by EHD Sewell at Bedford School
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

leg spinner
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.

Zimbabwe's lower order batsmen in a One Day International
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 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
tactics.

Writing in The Cricketers of My Time (1833), John Nyren 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

  1. ^ Lynch, Steven (19 January 2004). "The worst bowling average, and mystery injuries". ESPNcricinfo. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
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