Duckworth-Lewis Method (part 3)

1. Duckworth-Lewis Method (part 1)
2. Duckworth-Lewis Method (part 2)

After giving an introduction of Duckworth-Lewis method and some examples of Duckworth-Lewis method in the previous posts this post focuses on the  Duckworth-Lewis method and some of the previously used methods in rain affected games.

Before the invention of this method there have been several other methods used at the international level to decide the result of a rain affected match.One of them was the run rate based system. The main disadvantage of this method was that the number of wickets fallen was not considered. Thus in this system if a team has scored 100 runs for the lost of 9 wickets the position of the team is considered higher than scoring 90 runs for the loss of 1 wicket.

Eng v SA World Cup 1992
Situation at end of match SA need 22 runs.www.patrickeagar.com

Also another method that was used is the Highest Scoring Overs method which compares the maximum runs scored by team1 in any set of overs equal to the number of completed overs received by team 2 against the team 2 in those completed overs. So if team 2 received 31.4 overs their score after 31 overs is compared to the highest scoring 31 overs of team 1's innings. So this method becomes very unfair as the maidens bowled by the second team is not considered. So eventually this method is more biased towards the first team. The most controversial usage of this method arises in the 1992 world cup semi final between South Africa and England. Play was halted when South Africa had scored 231/6 from 42.5 overs against England's 252/6 from 45 overs. When play was able to resume there was time for South Africa to receive only one more ball, 43 overs in total, so their target was revised to 252 by discarding the two maiden overs in the England innings, one of which yielded one extra. So the number of bowls available was reduced by 12 but the target remained unchanged. Due to the use of this method an apparently attainable target suddenly became an impossible one. 


There are many other methods used in a rain affected match. All of these methods either uses the run rate , highest scoring overs or pre-calculated curves (as used in Duckworth-Lewis method) with slight variations. Yet Duckworth-Lewis method is regarded the best method so far used. But a slightly different method named as VJD system introduced by V.Jayadevan (an engineer from Thrissur in Kerala) has challenged the Duckwoth-Lewis method recently.