In football, you see the players out on the ground, no matter what. Be it rain, storm or snow. Cricket, isn’t as rough. It’s a tiring game no doubt and sure does test your stamina.
Can you imagine, standing out there for hours batting, bowling, and chasing a ball around the field? And these games can last for days! Of course you do get breaks in between, but it doesn’t take away the fact that it is not a girl’s sport.
In case of rain, unlike in football, play will have to be stopped, or delayed. It affects the surface, making it difficult for bowlers and bad light makes it difficult for batsmen to see the ball.
A lot of cricket matches played in countries like India and England are stopped due to rain. This ruins everything because can you imagine paying to see your country a big game and returning home with no result? How was this to be solved?
Step in, Mr. Tony Lewis and Frank Duckworth. A statistician and a mathematician. You know what I first thought when I heard that? My two worst subjects... statistics and mathematics. As if cricket wasn’t complicated enough!
As it turns out, the Duckworth-Lewis method is relatively easy to apply. You don’t need to have a degree in mathematics (although that might help).
Applied to 50 over matches, each team has to face at least 20 overs before D/L can decide the game. In
- B/R Ticket Guide
The method is based on two "resources" used to score as many runs on the board in order to win a game. One, would be the over’s and the second would be the amount of wickets in hand. A table (and a D/L calculator which can be found online) would give you a percentage of the resources. The percentage then gives you the target amount of runs required to win the game with the remaining over’s.
The D/L method has often been criticized for many reasons. One would be because it’s too complicated to understand.
For me, being a cricket fan...it still wasn’t easy. Hours of reading up about it and pestering my dad to explain it to me and I was still confused. Over the year, it got less complicated, but this method would understandably confuse a lot of people and even cause them to lose interest in the sport.
Also, according to a few sites on the internet wickets are (necessarily) a much more heavily weighted resource than over’s, 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.
The D/L method is not altogether perfect, because it is controlled by humans. In 2003, a game was played between South Africa and Sri Lanka, a wrong calculation while using the D/L method after play was interrupted by rain sent South Africa out of the World Cup.
The score required to win was 229, but one more run would have secured a victory for South Africa and Pollock’s team had miscalculated. Not pushing for that one extra run, cost them a chance to win the World Cup.
Over all, the Duckworth Lewis method might bring fair play in to cricket but in my opinion its complicated, and makes things hard. Where are those good old days, where when it rained, play was stopped and it seemed easier to understand?
Rain. No game. Oh, that’s understandable.
Now it's:
Rain. Pause. Bring out calculator...What the hell?
If only these mathematicians found a way to build a retractable shelter for the stadiums when it rains. How much more simple would life be?
Sigh. But cricket was doomed to be complicated, which is why we spend hours trying to explain it to others and they go "Hey, football’s on!" in the face of all our hard work!
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about 1 month ago
Michelle,
Let me tell you, you did a wonderful job. It was indeed interesting.
And yeah D/L should be developed to suit the present situations.
We cant tell if England was unlucky coz Indians didnt know until 17 overs were completed that it was going to be a 22 overs a side match. Had it known , it being the 20-20 champion, we would not expect a score less than 200. But then it is always tough when you end up losing. Humans complain.
However the D/L is better now compared to the method used in 1992 in the SA -England match when 22 runs off 17 balls was later due to a rain break changed to 22 off 1 ball.... SA always suffers , it seems like.
great work dude.......
from about 1 month ago
Hey Nikhil,
Thanks a lot.
The d/l method has caused a lot of problems in cricket, and its very annoying at times. Sure its a much better method than in the olden days, but don't you think back in the day, before any method had been come up with, when play was stopped due to rain, end of question, was much better?
Or a shelter, would be a much better answer. See what crazy things people come up with nowadays, why not something simple like a shelter for the stadium during the rain? I don't really ask it to be like an indoor cricket stadium, but it could be one of those that cover up the stadium only during rain :)
cheers & thanks for the comment =]
about 1 month ago
wonderful....POTD....ya like you said these people should have thought about some shelter aspect like the one they are building at wimbledon centre court.....recently MS Dhoni also confessed that he had problems understanding the method imagine...the indian captain saying that.....and frankly speaking the way the method was applied to the fourth one dayer between india and england was utterly impractical..i mean the organisers knew beforehand that it rains cats and dogs in the south at this time of the year so why to do such a thing?? and one day before the match it was predicted that the next day was going to face heavy showers..
i feel the ICC instead of spending of advt of the CL, should work out the cost of doing something concrete....but once again...WONDERFUL!!! [this time i am capitalising]
from about 1 month ago
Thanks Rohini, that means alot coming from you.
Dhoni was right to say that, cricket is a sport, you won't be seeing calculators and computers on the field! The method is crazy, but what annoys me even more is why pick a country to play a game, during the time it rains a lot , or where it generally rains alot? Its obviously going to disrupt play.
I love cricket, but I can understand why others find it boring! Rain isn't going to make things better! Specially when you bring in math and boring calculations.
Why not just watch Chess?
Why can't they play games in countries like UAE? it hardly ever rains here, and its not like there won't be a crowd, I remember the crowd when games used to be played in Sharjah. I was there for every game played by India and the stadium was overflowing!
Although , they'll probably have the matches during december, which is the only time it rains here. See, thats the problem. If you know its going to rain (and you can generally tell by the clouds) why send the players on the pitch in the first place?
Thanks again
cheers
about 1 month ago
exactly but who will tell the bcci that??? i wonder why they don't seem to be using their mind to actual problems.....it was real unfair for the english side... and i wonder why the english team didn't complain? they should have....from their side it was a case of " heads we win tails you lose"....
from about 1 month ago
They should be smart enough to figure that out on their own. No one needs to be telling them stuff, and they wouldn't listen anyway.
The English were right not to complain , because then the media would pass them off as 'whiney and frustrated after the loss'
After all the controversy with Australia, would they want to risk that?
about 1 month ago
Wow.. so you DO write about something other than soccer.
Thats nice to know coz now I can actually read your articles.
About the article, its very nice. You can put in one more example where South Africa needed a manageable 22 off 13 balls to beat England and play Pakistan in the 1992 World Cup finals but then comes rain and then comes a 22 off ONE ball decision! Thats right... same runs, minus 12 balls. No prizes for guessing who won that game. I was a toddler then but I still remember it.
Oh and btw, I still hate you for hating Tendulkar, Dravid, Ganguly etc.
Grr...
from about 1 month ago
Not usually, but I'm trying :)
Yeah I was supposed to use that, but i figured one would be enough.
Would it make things better if I said they all were great cricketers during when they were in form, but I think it was just selfish to force their way into the cricket team and leave greater youngsters out?
I hated them a bit before Dhoni took over, because Ganguly and the selectors didn't seem t o want to give the youngsters a chance. Dhoni fights for what he wants, and he's right.
All's better with Dhoni though.
Sach, is a legend. Dravid is good, but kinda boring (admit it), and Ganguly was a good captain, but I prefer Dhoni.
Thanks .btw :)
cheers
from about 1 month ago
When was the last time you watched cricket, girl?
Ganguly and Sach won us the test series against Australia. How can you use that result to tease Australians on B/R but not give them credit for it?
Sachin single handedly beat Australia twice earlier this year in best of 3 finals IN Australia. Forgot that? Sachin got a half century against England yest to put India at 5-0. What about that?
I dont know about Dravid but he'll be back. Besides, selectors are the ones that decide if a senior player should be played or a younger one.... the players don't decide that.
Sorry but I don't agree with your reasoning. So lets just agree to disagree.
Keep the cricket articles coming though.
from about 1 month ago
You're right, but Ganguly never tried to stand up for himself, in fear of losing his captaincy.
But whatever, no use argueing. Everyone see's things differently right?
And I do think they're great players, but maybe its time to step down
about 1 month ago
hey forgot to pick it even though mentioned about it...sorry....
from about 1 month ago
Thanks for the pick Rohini
about 1 month ago
the way BCCI coerces everyone....
about 1 month ago
"If only these mathematicians found a way to build a retractable shelter for the stadiums when it rains. How much more simple would life be?"
There's your point.. I think the only cricket stadium in the world with one is the Telstra Stadium in Melbourne.. even then, the purists will argue that it cuts off the cloud cover, and any help to the bowlers because it will cover the game 24x7..
from about 1 month ago
Well, everyones going to argue about something or the other. If they're so good, why don't they come up with something better?
Instead of a series of calculations?
about 1 month ago
Haha..nice read! And the last sentence was hilarious! Where I live, the moment I say the words 'bat' and 'ball', the conversation turns to baseball. I've given up trying to explain cricket to people, and let them live in their own happy world of bases, home runs and hot dogs in the bleachers.
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