Rain is cricket's oldest enemy. One minute you're watching a perfectly good ODI, the next the covers are coming on and everyone's staring at their phones wondering the same thing: what's the target now?
The answer comes from three letters you've heard a hundred times on commentary: DLS — the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method. It's the mathematical system that resets targets in rain-interrupted limited-overs matches. And despite what it sounds like, the idea behind it is beautifully simple.
What Is the DLS Method?
To understand DLS, you need to know the farce that created it.
The 1992 World Cup semi-final, England vs South Africa. South Africa needed 22 runs off 13 balls — very gettable. Then rain arrived. Under the rules of the time (the "Most Productive Overs" method), when play resumed, South Africa's target was recalculated to 21 runs off 1 ball. An impossible joke of a target. England went to the final; South Africa went home furious.
Watching that unfold were two English statisticians, Frank Duckworth and Tony Lewis. They decided cricket deserved better than a coin-flip disguised as mathematics. Their insight was elegant: stop looking at run rates and start looking at resources.
It's worth knowing what DLS replaced, because it shows why the old ways were so broken. The Average Run Rate method simply scaled the target by the run rate — which punished teams that had built their innings carefully for a late assault. The Most Productive Overs method only counted a team's best overs and ignored the rest, which is what produced the 21-off-1-ball absurdity in 1992. Both were blunt instruments; DLS was the first method that treated a cricket innings as what it actually is.
The ICC formally adopted their method in 1999, replacing the old systems. Then in 2014, Australian data scientist Steven Stern refined it to account for the way scoring had exploded in the modern era — T20 cricket and ODI death overs were producing runs at rates the original tables never imagined. His name was added, and Duckworth-Lewis became Duckworth-Lewis-Stern: DLS.
It has governed every rain-affected international limited-overs match since.
The Core Idea — Resources
Here's the whole method in one sentence: a batting side has two resources — overs remaining and wickets in hand — and every combination of the two is worth a certain percentage of a full innings.
Think of it like a fuel gauge. A team walking out to bat starts with 100% of its resources. Every over bowled and every wicket lost drains the tank — but not in a straight line. Ten overs left with 8 wickets in hand is worth far more than ten overs left with 2 wickets in hand, because wickets let you bat aggressively.
The DLS resource table maps every possible combination to a percentage. Here's a simplified illustration of how it works (the real tables are far more detailed):
| Overs Remaining | Wickets Lost | Resources Remaining |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | 0 | 100% |
| 40 | 0 | ~90% |
| 30 | 2 | ~72% |
| 20 | 4 | ~52% |
| 10 | 6 | ~26% |
Notice the key point: losing 20 overs at the start (50 → 30) costs only about 28% of your resources, because you still have all ten wickets to attack with. But losing wickets hurts disproportionately — 10 overs left with 6 wickets gone leaves you barely a quarter of a full innings.
This non-linearity is the cleverest part of the method. Your last couple of wickets are almost worthless (the tail can't score much anyway), but your first few wickets are precious — they determine whether you can attack or must rebuild. DLS captures this; the old methods never did.
When rain interrupts, DLS simply compares how many resources each team actually got, and adjusts the target to match. That's it. No pitch analysis, no player ratings, no team rankings — just overs and wickets.
How the Target Is Calculated
When the covers come off and the umpires signal a restart, the officials work through four steps:
Step 1: Work out Team 1's resources. If the team batting first completed its innings without interruption, it used 100% of its resources. (If it was interrupted too, its resources are looked up from the table.)
Step 2: Work out Team 2's resources. Using the resource table, look up the percentage for the overs remaining and wickets lost at each interruption, and calculate what Team 2 actually has left.
Step 3: Compare the two. The ratio of Team 2's resources to Team 1's resources tells you how much of the original target is fair.
Step 4: Set the new target. The formula, when Team 2 has fewer resources:
Team 2 target = (Team 1 score × Team 2 resources ÷ Team 1 resources) + 1 run
The "+1" is there because Team 2 needs to beat Team 1's score — matching it is only a tie.
A Worked Example
Let's walk through a simple one with round numbers.
Team 1 bats first and scores 240 all out in 50 overs. No interruptions, so it used 100% of its resources.
Rain arrives during the innings break. When play resumes, Team 2's innings is reduced to 30 overs. From the resource table, 30 overs with 0 wickets lost is worth roughly 75% of a full innings.
Now the math:
· Team 2 target = 240 × (75 ÷ 100) + 1
· = 240 × 0.75 + 1
· = 180 + 1
· = 181
So Team 2 needs 181 to win in 30 overs. Fair — they have three-quarters of the resources, so they chase three-quarters of the score, plus the one run needed to win it.
A Second Scenario: Rain During the Chase
The trickier — and more common — case is rain arriving midway through Team 2's innings. Here's how DLS handles it.
Team 1 scores 280 in their 50 overs (R1 = 100%). Team 2 starts the chase and reaches 140 for 2 after 25 overs — going well. Then rain. When play resumes, the officials reduce Team 2's innings to 40 overs total, so they now have 15 overs left with 2 wickets lost.
The calculation: look up the resources Team 2 had at the suspension (25 overs left, 2 wickets lost — roughly 65% on our simplified table), and subtract the resources they have at the resumption (15 overs left, 2 wickets lost — roughly 45%). Resources lost to rain: 20%.
Team 2's resources: R2 = 100 − 20 = 80%.
· Team 2 target = 280 × (80 ÷ 100) + 1
· = 280 × 0.80 + 1
· = 224 + 1
· = 225
So Team 2 needs 225 to win — and since they've already scored 140, they need 85 more runs off the remaining 15 overs with 8 wickets in hand. Notice how the two lost wickets barely dented the calculation at this stage, but would have mattered enormously if they'd been 6 or 7 down. That's the resource logic working exactly as designed.
When the Target Can Be Higher
Here's the twist that confuses everyone: sometimes the revised target is higher than what Team 1 actually scored.
This happens when Team 1's innings was also interrupted, and Team 2 ends up with more resources. Why? Because Team 2 knows its exact innings length from the first ball — it can plan its aggression perfectly — while Team 1 batted part of its innings not knowing the rain was coming. DLS charges Team 2 for that advantage.
In these cases, officials use the G50 adjustment (G50 = 245, roughly the average ODI score the model is calibrated around):
Revised target = Team 1 score + G50 × (Team 2 resources − Team 1 resources) ÷ 100
So if Team 2 genuinely has more resources, the target climbs above Team 1's total. It's not a mistake — it's the method accounting for the information advantage.
Quick illustration: say Team 1 manages 200 in a rain-wrecked innings worth 80% of resources, while Team 2 gets a cleaner chase worth 90%. Target = 200 + 245 × (90 − 80) ÷ 100 = 200 + 24.5 = 225 — a full 25 runs more than Team 1 scored. Surprising the first time you see it, but completely logical once you understand resources.
Par Score vs Target
You'll hear commentators mention two different numbers during a rain break. They're related, but they're not the same thing.
Target is the final number: the whole-number score Team 2 needs to win the match.
Par score is a running number: the score Team 2 should have reached at this exact moment to be level with Team 1, given the overs used and wickets lost so far. It's the same resource calculation, just run continuously instead of once.
Par score matters when play can't resume at all. If the match is abandoned after the minimum overs have been bowled, the officials compare Team 2's actual score at the stoppage with the par score for that exact situation:
· Above par → Team 2 wins
· Below par → Team 2 loses
· Exactly on par → it's a tie
That's why you'll sometimes see a team frantically trying to get ahead of "DLS par" as dark clouds gather — they know the rain might end the game, and being one run above par is the difference between winning and losing.
Real 2026 Examples
DLS isn't theory — it decides real matches every season. Here are two from 2026.
Australia vs South Africa, 3rd ODI, Potchefstroom — 30 September 2026. Australia batted first and piled up 322 for 9, with Alex Carey making 74 and Mitchell Marsh smashing 56 off 42 balls. South Africa's chase of 323 was going nowhere good — 145 for 4 after 28 overs, already well behind the required rate — when persistent rain ended the match. The DLS par score calculation left South Africa 45 runs short, handing Australia a 45-run DLS victory and saving them from a series whitewash.
India Women vs Australia Women, 1st T20I, Sydney — 15 February 2026. Rain intervened in this one too, and when the calculations were done, India Women had won by 21 runs on DLS. Pace bowler Arundhati Reddy was the star, her four-wicket haul dismantling Australia's top order on a dramatic Sydney evening. A famous away win — even if the rain had the final say on the margin.
FAQs
Does DLS favour the chasing team?
Not by design. The method is built to be neutral — it gives each side a target proportional to the resources it actually received. But situations can favour one side: if rain is clearly coming, the chasing team knows it and can bat aggressively to get ahead of par, while the fielding side can do little about the weather. That's gamesmanship around the method, not bias in it.
Why can the target be higher than the first-innings score?
Because Team 2 can end up with more resources than Team 1 had — usually when Team 1's innings was interrupted and Team 2's is shorter but fully planned. Since Team 2 knows its exact overs from ball one, DLS charges it for that advantage via the G50 adjustment, which can push the target above Team 1's total.
Does DLS apply to Test cricket?
No. DLS is only for limited-overs cricket (ODIs and T20Is). Test matches have enough time built in — lost overs are simply lost, and matches can end in draws.
What's the minimum overs needed for a result?
Under ICC playing conditions, each side must have the chance to bat 20 overs in an ODI and 5 overs in a T20I for a result to be possible. If rain prevents that, the match is a no-result (or abandoned), and DLS never comes into play.
What's the difference between the Standard and Professional editions?
The Standard Edition works from a single published resource table and can be calculated with pen, paper, and a calculator — it's what club and lower-level cricket uses. The Professional Edition is licensed software that adjusts the model for very high-scoring innings, and it's what international and major domestic cricket uses. For ordinary totals they give similar answers; for huge ones they can differ.
What happens if it rains before the toss?
Then DLS usually isn't needed at all — the match is simply shortened before it starts, and both teams get the same reduced overs from the beginning. DLS only kicks in when an interruption creates an imbalance in resources between the two innings.
🏏 Try It Yourself
Reading about DLS is one thing — running the numbers is better. Try cricvic.com's free DLS target estimator and see how targets shift as you change overs and wickets: DLS target estimator
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