Field Settings: Fast/Medium, Old Ball, Club Wicket, Long Format | Cricket coaching, fitness and tips

Field Settings: Fast/Medium, Old Ball, Club Wicket, Long Format

This is a special field setting for a particular type of seam bowler: One we set up to give a prize away here.

The bower in question has a unique style in that he bowls wide on the crease and gets plenty of seam movement.

He mainly plays 50 over club matches with draws possible, bowling in the middle of the innings or towards the end.

We had 8 fields submitted and the bowler chose the best one (well, he chose two, but I pinned him down).

Here is the field:
 
 

The winner, again, is AB. Just showing how his knowledge is unmatched in the PitchVision Academy community!

Interestingly, our bowler said he rarely has a fine leg as the ball does not go down there very often.  Runs are mainly scored from drives in front of square, or from loose balls being cut and pulled. That gives you a spare man.

Gully gets him wickets and is a surprisingly effective run saver with the right man in position.

He also tends to see the ball pop up on the leg side so a short midwicket is a good attacking option. In a death situation slip can drop back to third man and mid on and mid off can go back to the rope.

The bowler looks to bowl outside off stump with the ball coming back in to off. This makes it hard to get an LBW but key dismissals are bowled and caught on the leg side.

He varies this stock ball with a short of a length delivery that can get up. He also has an excellent yorker, often clearing up the tail by bowling full and straight.

Thanks to all the people who submitted a field, we will see how he gets on this weekend! 

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Comments

I thought Alex's field was also pretty good, and I kinda regretted not putting a short leg or leg gulley in once I had thought about it, funnily enough.

With the field above, he should definitely try to avoid giving too much width, as that is the main area of weakness.

Honest to God you are having a laugh mate.. ..

You cannot have this field in the dead overs of Club cricket. Because if the batters arent of the standard so would be the fielders.

I guarantee you, you set this field for a bowler of even McGrath or Brett Lee or Wasim Akram's class and they will concede runs, even if they are playing in the Club competition.

That's a Joke!!

We're talking about the middle overs in a club 50 over match, not the death overs of the IPL. Batsmen will typically be looking to score at between 4-6 an over whilst keeping wickets in hand.

Having two men out, two men catching, and the rest saving one is normally a suitable field for this in my opinion.

I don't really understand the reason for the criticism. It's a bad field because fielders are not very good?

If you look at Shoaib's suggestion on the other thread, it was to have 2 men catching, 1 man saving the single, and everyone else on the boundary, so I think he is suggesting that this field isn't defensive enough.

That sort of undermines his point then. There has to be four in the ring.

However, yes I agree it's not defensive enough for the very death with a batsman hitting out freely. That's why the article explains: slip goes out and mid on mid off go back.

Yes - if you were being attacking at the start of the game, one of the legside fielders could come in catching at short leg, short midwicket (on a slow pitch) or leg gulley (on a quick pitch). The bowler would bowl on a length and an off-stump line, looking for seam movement either way. Plenty of chances of wickets here - bowled, lbw, caught at slip, caught at in the leg side.

Then as you got towards the end, the slip could go to short third, and the straight fielders could go back, leaving 5 in the ring and 4 on the ropes. Bowler would bowl yorkers at middle stump with the occasional back of a length ball into the ribs to keep the batsman guessing.

hmm, it seems too leg side orientated.
id only have this field if i was bowling on someones pads
but otherwise i would take the deep square leg out and put him in at short extra cover.

this is best because the stock ball will be in the corridor of uncertainty looking for assistance off the pitch or in the air. so the batsman will naturaly play the ball the ball into the off side. if the batsman is on the slog then id move long on and midwicket well out to give myself a little protection, plus the dullness of batsmen at my level (the lowest) means that they will just sky it to the cow corner fielders and i can bag a couple of wickets.

Funnily enough, we used this exact field at the weekend for our medium pacer bowling a nagging length, an accurate middle-and-off line, with just a hint of movement both ways on a slowish pitch. Not full enough to drive with any confidence, and no width to play through the offside, so the only outlet is to leg: as a result both the deep square leg and fine leg were pretty busy, but our bowler ended up taking 4-25 off 10 overs to effectively win us the game. The field worked a treat as the runs dried up: two batsmen got caught trying to slog at length balls, one got bowled through the gate trying to go inside out through the offside, and the other one got frustrated and charged down the pitch, missed the ball, and was comprehensively stumped.

I do agree that a field with a deep cover and third man would also work at containing the scoring, but that just seems so negative to me, as the bowler is going to be scared to bowl at the stumps, which is something all batsmen love to see. I like to see my bowlers going for the stumps.