Defining the wagon wheel

Question

The wagon wheel in cricket is that... spokes they put out, and define scoring areas. The areas are:

• Behind square Offside
• Behind square Legside
• In front of square Offside
• In front of square Legside
• Straight Offside
• Straight Legside

My question comes in the line which splits straight and in front of square. Is it 45 degrees? or is it trying to make each scoring area is equal (assuming the pitch is in the middle) in terms of area and the field is symmetric (which it can't really be since the behind square is smaller than the others).

I don't know if it's been defined anywhere, and as much as I would like equal sized scoring areas, having 45 degrees is just so much simpler. I also tried to do 45 degree from the middle of the pitch, creating a strange weird scoring polygon.

I did 2 scenarios here, one with 45 degrees on the legside (for right hander) and on the right is a slightly different idea if no official definition exists. PS: I'm not super good with geogebra so I just estimated the sizes, but they should be fairly accurate.

Answer 1

As a general rule, the lines are drawn around (likely exactly on) 45 degree angles, but the reasoning behind this is most likely due to the way shots are played through those two regions.

"Front-foot" shots (such as on- and off-drives, cover drives, or drives through mid-wicket) are played on the front foot (stepping forward into the shot) and generally are played through the forward two sectors. Conversely, "back-foot" shots (such as the cut, pull and hook shot), are played by stepping back towards the wicket-keeper, and normally direct the ball square.

This is clearly not an ideal breakdown of stroke-play, as it doesn't account for miss-hits, edges, late drives or other "unconventional" shots, but it is sufficient, over a long enough innings, to show how a particular batsmen or team has played.