In the sport

Sport

A Sport is all forms of physical activity which, through casual or organised participation, aim to use, maintain or improve physical fitness and provide entertainment to participants. Sport may be competitive, where a winner or winners can be identified by objective means, and may require a degree...

 of cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

, a slip fielder (collectively, a slip cordon or the slips) is placed behind the batsman on the off side of the field. They are placed with the aim of catching an edged ball which is beyond the wicket-keeper

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 guarded by the batsman currently on strike...

'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 wicketkeeper 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

Batting order (cricket)

In cricket, the batting order is the sequence in which batsmen play through their team's innings, there always being two batsmen taking part at any one time...

 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.

Gully

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 in gully would be standing on the imaginary straight line that extends from the on-side corner of batter's popping crease to middle stump towards the slip cordon. The position of gully was invented in the 1880s by Arthur Jones

Arthur Jones (cricketer)

Arthur Owen Jones , was a cricketer, noted as an all-rounder.He was born in Shelton, Nottinghamshire, and educated at Bedford Modern School and Jesus College, Cambridge. He played for Cambridge University, Nottinghamshire, London County and England...

, who later became England captain

English national cricket captains

This is a list of all English national cricket captains, comprising all of the men, boys and women who have captained an English national cricket team at official international level. England played in the first Test match in 1877 and have played more Test matches, and had more captains, than any...

, at Bedford Modern School

Bedford Modern School

Bedford Modern School is a British co-educational independent school in the Harpur area of Bedford, in the county of Bedfordshire, in England.Bedford Modern comprises a junior school and a senior school...

 in Bedford

Bedford

Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...

. It was quickly adopted by EHD Sewell at Bedford School

Bedford School

Bedford School is not to be confused with Bedford Modern School or Bedford High School or Old Bedford School in Bedford, TexasBedford School is an HMC independent school for boys located in the town of Bedford, England, United Kingdom...

 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

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....

. 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

Outswinger

An outswinger is a type of delivery in the sport of cricket. It is bowled by swing bowlers.An outswinger is bowled by holding the cricket ball with the seam at an angle and the first two fingers running along either side of the seam...

s or leg cutter

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 fast delivery with the wrist locked in position and the first two fingers positioned on top of the cricket ball, giving it spin about a horizontal axis perpendicular to the length of...

s, or the standard leg spinner

Leg break

A leg break is a type of delivery in the sport of cricket. A delivery of a right-handed leg spin bowler. Leg breaks are also colloquially known as leggies or wrist spinners, as the wrist is the body part which is primarily used to impart spin on the ball, as opposed to the fingers in the case of...

 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

English cricket team

The England and Wales cricket team is a cricket team which represents England and Wales. Until 1992 it also represented Scotland. Since 1 January 1997 it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board , having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club from 1903 until the end...

 used seven slips in the first Test

Test cricket

Test cricket is the longest form of the sport of cricket. Test matches are played between national representative teams with "Test status", as determined by the International Cricket Council , with four innings played between two teams of 11 players over a period of up to a maximum five days...

 against West Indies

West Indian cricket team

The West Indian cricket team, also known colloquially as the West Indies or the Windies, is a multi-national cricket team representing a sporting confederation of 15 mainly English-speaking Caribbean countries, British dependencies and non-British dependencies.From the mid 1970s to the early 1990s,...

 in Jamaica

Jamaica

Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...

 in 2004; Australia

Australian cricket team

The Australian cricket team is the national cricket team of Australia. It is the joint oldest team in Test cricket, having played in the first Test match in 1877...

 went further and used the maximum of nine slips against Zimbabwe

Zimbabwean cricket team

The Zimbabwean cricket team is a national cricket team representing Zimbabwe. It is administrated by Zimbabwe Cricket...

'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 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

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, specifically to combat the extraordinary batting skill of Australia's Don Bradman...

 tactics.

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

John Nyren

John Nyren was an English cricketer and author. Nyren made 16 known appearances in first-class cricket from 1787 to 1817...

 of Hambledon

Hambledon, Hampshire

Hambledon is a small village and civil parish in the county of Hampshire in England, situated about north of Portsmouth.Hambledon is best known as the 'Cradle of Cricket'. It is thought that Hambledon Club, one of the oldest cricket clubs known, was formed about 1750...

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 many slips from the bat, both to the leg and the off-side.