The Duckworth-Lewis Method(D/L)-Its Introduction and Value in Cricket

Posted on June 30, 2009
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Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis-The men behind the D/L Method

Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis-The men behind the D/L Method

Every one who loves cricket or plays cricket knows most of the cricket rules, but i think no one knows exactly what Duckworth and Lewis method exactly is, even most of the cricket officials.Here is a chance to know about it.This method is actually an eluding mystery for most of the people.Earlier when rain interrupts the game the cricket match will either postpone or abandon, but nowadays there will be surely an ultimate result in the cricket match, which will either rejoiced or bitterly cursed by the die-hard cricket fans.

As the name of the method suggests, there were two men behind this D/L method.The interesting fact is that both of them were British statisticians who never played professional cricket before and also they didn’t officiate in any international cricket matches.One of them is Frank Duckworth , consultant statistician, and the editor of the Royal Statistical Society’s monthly news magazine  in the UK.  Tony Lewis ( not the cricketer)  is a mathematician and by inference  jointly  developed the Duckworth-Lewis method . It  was developed  from an undergraduate final-year project at the University of the West of England.

Duckworth-Lewis Method (D/L method) is a numerical way to calculate the target score of the team who is batting second if the match is interrupted by rain or other circumstances in a limited over match like One Day International or Twenty-20 cricket games.Actually most of the cricket officials favors the method since it is the best way to set a target for the second team batting when the match is interrupted due to any weather conditions.It also generates some controversy since it will change the game dramatically over its natural conclusion.

The D/L method was first implemented in the second International cricket match between Zimbabwe and England in a One Day International series in 1996/97, which Zimbabwe won by 7 runs.Then the International Cricket Council (ICC) officially adopted the method in 2001 as the standard method of calculating the target scores when the rain shortened limited over cricket matches.

Time before the introduction D/L method

There are lot of methods before the introduction of D/L method in which all the methods were not standard and are applied according to the condition of the matches.The methods were

All of these methods have faults and its own difficulties to carry out and these kinds of methods could be easily exploitative.For Instance,the run-rate ratios did not account for how many wickets the team batting second have lost but only account for the runs.This can be easily exploited by the team who is batting second since they can only concentrate on their targeted runs by scoring quickly at the point of time the match was interrupted and not on wickets.

“The best scoring method” was used in the 1992 world cup in which South Africa needed 21 runs from just one ball which is really impossible since the maximum runs that could be taken from 1 ball is six runs.Prior to the interruption of rain, South Africa needed 22 runs from 13 balls which is an achievable task.But when the rain interrupts the game the target was reduced by only 1 run, to be scored from 12 fewer balls which is really an impossible task.When D/L method is carried out in this case, South Africa needed 5 runs to win from the final delivery, which means that D/L is the better method compared to other methods.

The D/L method can be used for interruptions in the first or second innings.For Instance, In the 4th ODI between India and England in the 2008 series, the first innings was interrupted by rain on two occasions resulting the match was reduced to 22 overs a side.India (batting first) made 166 runs and the target for the England cricket team was therefore set by the D/L method was 198 runs from 22 overs which obviously made difficult for the English batsmen and they took only 178 runs in 22 overs and so the Indian team won the game by 19 runs by D/L method.

Another example of an interruption in the second innings was the first One Day International (ODI) between India and Pakistan in their 2006 ODI series.India batted first and and they were all out in the 49th over for 328 runs.In response to this Pakistan took 311 runs for the loss of 7 wickets and the match was stopped due to bad light.This is the time where D/L method comes into play.And indeed, application of the D/L method resulted in a target score of 304 at the end of the 47th over, with the officially listed result as “Pakistan won by 7 runs (D/L Method)” much to the disappointment of the Indian fans.

D/L method is quite a simple theory although many times it becomes difficult for fans and players to understand.The “Resources” are the key essence of the D/L method.

The essence of the D/L method is ‘resources’. Each team is taken to have two ‘resources’ to use to make as many runs as possible:

At any point in any innings, a team’s ability to score more runs depends on the combination of these two resources.When D/L method is applied to 50 over matches both sides has to bat at least 20 overs before D/L can decide the game.In the case of Twenty20 cricket matches each team has to face at least 5 overs.
The D/L method has been criticized based on the fact that wickets are (necessarily) a much more heavily weighted resource than overs, leading to the observation that if teams are chasing big targets, and there is the prospect of rain, a winning strategy could be to not lose wickets and score at what would seem to be a “losing” rate (e.g. if the asking rate was 6.1, it could be enough to score at 4.75 an over for the first 20-25 overs).

Another criticism is that the D/L method does not account for changes in the proportion of number of overs during which field restrictions are in place compared to a completed match.

Another common criticism by the cricket fans and the journalists are that this method is more complex and is hard to understand.For instance, in a one-day match against England on 20th March 2009, the West Indies coach John Dyson called his players in for bad light, believing that his team would win by one run under the D/L method. In fact Javagal Srinath, the match referee, confirmed that the West Indies were two runs short of their target, giving the victory to England.

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