Silly Point
Like most children in India, my childhood was full of Cricket – be it watching matches on the TV or playing endlessly with friends.
While watching a 5-day (test) match one day, I came across a weird-sounding fielding position - silly point.
By the way, it is still used quite frequently today.
This position is placed extremely close to the batsman often on the off-side (and sometimes on the leg-side). Earlier I used to wonder about the absurdness of the name (silly point). One day, one of my friends pointed out to me that the person standing there must be silly enough to do such a daring act (and hence it is called silly point 😊).
We laughed heartily & I left the subject there. After some days, while watching another match on the TV, I realized that although the batsman was aware about the fielder at silly point, he was bit overconfident (and hence getting careless) in his shot selection.
The bowler on the other end realized this soon & managed to trap the batsman with one of his next deliveries. While trying to play a rather defensive shot, he got out by giving a catch to the silly point fielder.
That day, I realized that ‘silly point’ position was created by some wise cricketer (in the past) to fool the batsman actually 😊. Thinking that position to be harmless, the batsman often would become careless & hence would end up giving away his wicket.
(See this video for a wonderful demonstration of importance of a silly point)
In last 10 years, the traffic in front of my office has increased ten-fold. As a result, apart from the traffic, we also have to agonizingly wait for the traffic signals to turn green. When I go home, I need to take a left turn at that traffic signal. It is a blind turn. It means I cannot see anything on that road unless I take the left turn.
Some years back, I was navigating my car through an ocean of other vehicles. By the time I reached the traffic light, it promptly turned red. Couple of vehicles were in front of me. Despite seeing the red light, they took the left turn.
I was almost tempted to follow them but some inner voice stopped me.
When I eventually took the turn, I saw those two vehicles stopped by a traffic police officer, who was (conveniently) standing at the far end of that blind turn 😊
“Ah…that’s a perfect silly point !”, I exclaimed from inside my car, profusely thanking my inner voice multiple times which had earlier stopped me to take that blind turn.
My elder son plays Chess quite well. I was the one who introduced him to Chess initially (and then stopped playing with him the moment he started beating me regularly at Chess … that too in the span of just 6 months 😊).
He continued honing his game & is improving day by day. He even came second in the Chess tournament at his college recently.
Last month, we decided to play after long time. I knew that I would lose eventually but I wanted to make my best attempt.
Although it was heartening to see his skill level had improved significantly, it was equally bad getting beaten from him faster than earlier days 😊.
He lured me in a trap by sacrificing his Bishop. I made a lot of show about ‘killing’ his bishop using my Queen …which he promptly took away from the chessboard using his Knight in the next move.
“How did I not see it coming?”, I wondered … but it was too late.
It was a typical silly point wicket.
Life is full of such silly points.
If we are not careful, often a shocking loss is guaranteed.
What’s your experience with silly points?
Loved the way you explained Silly Point with different real life experiences