The laws have cricked have been revised to allow fielders to move when batsmen alter their position at the crease.
With players increasingly willing to employ 'switch hits' and pre-meditated reverse sweeps, fielders will now be permitted to counter such moves by moving before the ball has reached the batsman.
Marylebone Cricket Club, custodians of the laws of the game, cited an incident from 2014 when Australia's Steve Smith moved from slip to leg-slip to dismiss Pakistan's Fawad Alam as "intelligent fielding".
John Stephenson, MCC's head of cricket, said: "It is important that MCC continues to keep pace with the game's development, and that's why we have made these changes to the Laws. Steve Smith's excellent catch in Abu Dhabi last year illustrated that such skilful anticipation by a fielder should be within the Laws of the game, and these changes now make that the case."
Source: PA
