5 best South African silly point / short leg fielders of all time

#4 Dean Elgar

The left-handed opener made his Test debut for South Africa in 2012 and over the past half a decade or so, Dean Elgar has become one of the team's more reliable batsmen.

On the other hand, he has also become the team's first choice fielder at silly point and over the years, he has proven to be extremely reliable in the position.

One of the most important attributes of a good silly point fielder is that he must be able to figure out when to move out of the way and when to stand his ground, since after all a batsman might wind up for a drive and end up mistiming it or offering a catch to the silly point fielder.

Elgar seems to have that quality and does not always duck as soon as he sees the batsman ready to go for a stroke on the offside. Last but not the least, he has good skills of anticipation as well and enough agility to pull off catches that come his way.

The silly point is primarily used when spinners are in operation and since South Africa are not overly reliant on their spin bowlers, he does not always get to field there for too many overs. It perhaps explains his tally of 43 catches in 45 Test matches.