A short excerpt about Pakistan vs England at The Oval, 1974.
Q: Could it be that the forward short leg has crossed over the pitch to the off-side? We have seen Tony Greig, in particular, in recent years extracting a lot of nuisance value from standing in very close on the off side.
SMITH: You see a man there to the off spinner particularly, although Derek Underwood uses it a lot as a standard position to his bowling. Underwood is unique; it is very difficult to categorize him as a slow left-arm bowler because he is just a little below medium pace. He is very accurate, cutting the ball, and beating the batsman on either side. Prior to the forward short leg, batsmen tended to push right out to the ball. If it turned or swung, then often it would hit the edge, then the pad, and go up in the air.
When the crowding fieldsmen came along, the batsmen developed the bat and pad technique, pushing way out with the pad in front of the bat, which was in line with the ball and wicket. If the ball then moved in, it tended to hit the pad first. Any off-side edge off the bat was shielded from going out into the leg trap by the pads. A number of edges then went from the bat and pad into the side, hence the development of the short square off-side position that Tony Greig favors.
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