silly mid off?

Factual Questions
1

I was bored, flipping around the dial and came across a cricket match on Fox Sports World.

What on earth is going on there? What exactly is a “silly mid off?” Can anybody give a quick Cricket 101 lesson?

Thanks

Phouchg
Lovable Rogue

2

Try http://www-aus.cricket.org for all the cricket information you can handle.

Silly mid-off is a fielding position close to the bat. Mid off is about 30 metres from the bat, in front of the batsman on the off side (the right hand side of a right-handed batsman). Silly mid off is about 5 metres from the bat on the same angle. It’s “silly” because you can get badly hurt fielding there. On preview, I see there is a diagram at CricInfo.

3

Cricket has not gone metric. Please convert all ‘metre’ references to yards.

Silly mid-off, like silly mid-on, is a silly position to field. That’s why most players in these positions wear protective helmets.

4

Many years ago I played Silly Mid-off. For the most part it consisted of catching blocks, but occasionally required actually catching a hard hit. Ouch! The trick was figuring when a pop-up block was about to happen, requiring that I move and dive for it, and when a line drive was about to happen, in which case moving in would limit my chances of contributing to the gene pool. Definitely a silly position. The best analogy to baseball would be a shortstop standing between the pitcher and the batter, off to one side a bit.

5

Brian Close, former captain of Yorkshire & England, very often fielded at silly mid-off.

On one occasion he took a full-blooded drive from the batsman on his forehead. This was in the days before helmets.

Instead of lying unconscious like others would have done, he immediately berated the nearest fielder for failing to catch the rebound.

6

Fear not, Brian Close has absolutely nothing of value behind his forehead.

7

Another cricket thread?

OK, who can explain “sticky wicket”?

8

We tend not to get them in England, but the great Aussie summariser Richie Benaud gave us a good description the other day. When there has been heavy rainfall on a clay soil pitch like they get in some parts of Australia etc., the water doesn’t fully drain away for a while and the surface literally remains sticky. The ball then has a tendency to adhere to the surface, picking up bits of soil, damaging the surface and not bouncing the way you’d expect it to.

9

From the fine site picmr linked to:

Cricket Explained by an American for Americans.

[sub]I still don’t get baseball though. I’m sure it’s a great game, but I just don’t get it.[/sub]