Thursday, February 09, 2006

Fielding Names

One of the difficulties of explaining cricket to people is describing the location each of the fielding positions. Names like mid-off, mid-on, cover, point, cover-point, extra cover, square leg, fine leg, gully, mid-wicket ... what does it mean??

Of course, no sooner has my friend formed a mental picture of the situation, than a left-handed batsman comes into play. Experienced cricket fans know that (for a left hander) the fielding 'map' is reversed. But for people new to the game, it's difficult to believe that the guy who just ran 50 metres is still at fine leg, while the guy who remains unmoved has gone from forward square leg to cover-point.

All of this confusion comes from the fact that the whole thing is centred around the batsman. Each and every fielder can be described in terms of how far (and in what direction) he is from the face of the batsman.

In life, what do we centre our game around? Is it our job? Is it sport? Is it money? Is it our partner? Christians believe the answer is to centre it around Jesus - the guy with two main goals - love god and love others. Sounds good to me.

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