As digital scoring becomes more common at all levels of the league DLS is being used more and more. As such, it’s worth taking a moment to look at how it works, and how it can affect a team’s decision-making on the field. As a reminder, in the Championship and above, and in lower divisions if the captains have agreed to use it, DLS is used to determine the result of a game whenever overs are lost after the match has started. Once this happens, DLS sets a “par” score for the second innings, and a “target” score to win the game which is the par score plus one. 

 

DLS is needed in all situations where overs are lost after a match starts, even if the teams are left batting the same overs as each other (e.g. 40 overs each rather than the original 50). This is because one team has had their innings interrupted, which will have either damaged them (if they still had plenty of wickets and overs in hand) or possibly helped them (if they were in the process of collapsing!). In either case an adjustment needs to be made to the target score required to win the game, to compensate for the imbalance that the interruption has caused. 

 

DLS is based on the principle that a batting team has two resources to use when building their score: 

a) a specific number of overs, and 

b) ten wickets. 

 

When overs are lost from an innings due to an interruption in play, one or both teams are deprived of the opportunity to use these two resources in the manner that they had planned to, and DLS calculates new a new target score to reflect this. In doing this DLS takes into account three things: 

• the point in the innings that the interruption occurs 

• the number of wickets still in hand when the interruption occurs 

• the number of overs that are lost 

 

DLS expects teams to score runs quickest towards the end of their innings, as long as they still have the wickets in hand to do so. So if a team loses the last 10 overs of their innings to rain, and still had 7 wickets in hand, DLS will make a significant adjustment to the target score to compensate them for the loss of these 10 overs. But if a team loses 10 overs early in an innings (and therefore has time to adjust their approach afterwards), or has already lost most of their wickets at the point of the interruption, then DLS won’t view them as having been disadvantaged much, and may even decide that their opposition have been unfairly disadvantaged by the interruption. 

 

A couple of examples will show this, using a 50 over match: 

Example 1: The team batting first are 200/3 after 40 overs, at which point rain ends their innings, leaving the team batting second with 40 overs too. DLS outcome: the team batting second are set a target of 258 to win 

Example 2: The team batting first are 50/2 after 10 overs, at which point rain suspends play temporarily, leaving both teams with innings of 40 overs. After play restarts, the first team ends up with a score of 200. DLS outcome: the team batting second are set a target of 200 to win 

 

As you can see the difference in the second innings target is huge, despite the number of overs lost being the same, and both teams batting for the same number of overs. 

 

No. DLS only takes into account wickets lost BEFORE an interruption. 

 

In Example 2 above you’ll notice I didn’t bother telling you how many wickets the first team had lost at the end of their innings – I just said that they had scored 200 runs. That’s because it doesn’t matter for DLS. Only the number of wickets lost at the point of an interruption (in that case, 2 wickets) affects the DLS target. It wouldn’t matter whether the score at the end of that first innings was 200/3 or 200/10 - the DLS target for the second innings would have been exactly the same at 199. 

However, it is certainly true that if a team believes that their innings is about to be interrupted by rain then they should keep as many wickets in hand as possible. 

 

For example: 

Example 1: The team batting first in a 50 over match are 80/0 after 20 overs, at which point rain stops play, leaving both teams with innings of 40 overs. The first team ends up with a score of 200. DLS outcome: second team are set a target of 223 to win 

Example 2: The team batting first in a 50 over match are 80/6 after 20 overs, at which point rain stops play, leaving both teams with innings of 40 overs. The first team ends up with a score of 200. DLS outcome: second team are set a target of 186 

 

As you can see, the number of wickets still in hand at the point rains stops play is very important for the DLS target score. 

 

Where DLS is in use, due to a prior interruption in play, the “par score” for the team batting second will depend how many overs they get to bat for, of course. As such, as their innings progresses, the par score will be constantly updated to reflect the score that they would need to win the match (i.e. par score +1) if rain stopped play at that moment. 

Wickets lost in the second innings can have a great effect on the par score, as the following examples show. This is because the DLS system expects teams to reach a certain score for each wicket they lose. 

 

In both examples below, the first innings finished after 40 overs, due to rain, with the score at 200/8, leaving both teams with an innings of 40 overs. The second team start their innings with a DLS target of 203 to win. 

Example 1: Rain stops play after 20 overs of the second innings, with the team batting second on 100/3. DLS outcome: Target score 91 to win. Result = victory for team batting second 

Example 2: Rain stops play after 20 overs of the second innings, with the team batting second on 100/5. DLS outcome: Target score 122. Result = victory for team batting first 

 

As you can see, a relatively small number of wickets lost in the second innings can make the difference between victory and defeat, if the second innings is unexpectedly cut short. 

 

However, it’s important to say that if the second innings is not interrupted by rain then the number of wickets lost during it doesn’t matter. Only reaching the original target score set for the second innings matters in that situation, not how many wickets were lost in doing so. But, just as in the first innings, if the team batting do anticipate rain, they may wish to be very protective of their wickets. 

 

You can use the Play Cricket Scorer app to play around with the numbers. An account is not required to use the DLS tool (click "Continue without logging in" and the the DLS icon in the top corner). You can also play with the calculators at https://cricclubs.com/NCF/dlsCalculator.do or https://blog.cricheroes.com/dls-calculator/ which appear to use the latest version of DLS and delivers the same results as the Play Cricket scorer app. Please note that these are for research purposes only and are not for use in a match situation.