The DLS Method Explained: Why Rain Can Raise a Target
By Arshi Khan, Founder of Just4Marketing · October 6, 2026 · 7 min read
How the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method sets revised targets, why a stoppage in the first innings can push the target above the first team's score, and how to work it out ball by ball.
Few things in cricket cause as many arguments as a rain-reduced target. A side finishes on 200, the rain comes, and the chasing team is told it needs 247 from 40 overs. To many fans that looks like a mistake — how can the target go up when there are fewer overs? It isn't a mistake. It's the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) method doing exactly what it was designed to do, and once you see how it thinks about a batting innings, the number makes sense.
Runs come from two resources, not one
Older rain rules only looked at overs. If a side lost a fifth of its overs, the target dropped by a fifth. That ignored something every captain knows: a team with ten overs left and all ten wickets in hand can attack far harder than a team with ten overs left and eight wickets down. DLS treats a batting side as having two resources — overs remaining and wickets in hand — and gives every combination a percentage of a full 50-over innings.
| Overs left | 0 wickets lost | 3 wickets lost |
|---|---|---|
| 50 | 100.0% | 74.9% |
| 40 | 89.3% | 69.6% |
| 30 | 75.1% | 61.6% |
| 20 | 56.6% | 49.1% |
| 10 | 32.1% | 29.8% |
These figures come from the Standard Edition table in the ICC's playing conditions. Notice that losing overs matters far more early in an innings, and that wickets matter less when few overs remain — with ten overs left, being three down only costs a couple of percentage points.
Why a first-innings stoppage can raise the target
Here is the case that confuses people. Team 1 is batting in a 50-over match and reaches 200/3 after 40 overs. Rain arrives and the innings is ended there. Team 2 is then told before it starts that it has 40 overs.
- When the rain came, Team 1 had 10 overs and 7 wickets left — 29.8% of its resources, according to the table. It had been pacing its innings to use them, and they were taken away. So Team 1 used 100% − 29.8% = 70.2% of a full innings.
- Team 2 knows from the first ball that it has 40 overs and ten wickets: 89.3%.
- Team 2 has more resources than Team 1 had, so the target goes up. In the Standard Edition the extra runs are G50 × (R2 − R1) ÷ 100, where G50 is the average 50-over score (245 at international level): 245 × 19.1 ÷ 100 = 46.8. Team 1's 200 becomes a par score of 246 and a target of 247.
In plain terms, Team 1 scored 200 while batting as if it had 50 overs, keeping wickets in hand for a late acceleration that never came. Team 2 can plan for 40 overs from the start, so matching 200 would be too easy.
When the target goes down instead
The more familiar case is a stoppage during the chase. In one of the ICC's worked examples, Team 1 makes 250 in 50 uninterrupted overs, Team 2 reaches 40/1 after 12 overs, and 10 overs are lost. With 38 overs left and one wicket down, Team 2 had 82.0% of its resources; with 28 overs left, 68.8%. It lost 13.2%, so R2 = 86.8%. Because R2 is now less than R1 (100%), the target is scaled down: 250 × 86.8 ÷ 100 + 1 = 218, and Team 2 needs a further 178 from 28 overs.
Why calculators disagree
If you've tried a few online DLS calculators and got different answers, there are three usual causes:
- First-innings stoppages are ignored. Many calculators only let you enter interruptions to the chase. For the example above they assume Team 1 had its full 100%, and come out far too low.
- A different G50. The ICC uses 245 for matches between full members and first-class sides, and recommends 200 for associates, women's ODIs, and Under-15 internationals. Club competitions often set their own value.
- Standard vs Professional Edition. Elite matches use the DLS Professional Edition, software run by match officials, whose figures can differ from the published Standard Edition table — especially when the first innings is high-scoring.
A quick checklist for scorers
- Record the overs bowled (in cricket notation, e.g. 27.4) and wickets down at every stoppage.
- Record the innings length after each restart, not just the overs lost.
- Note whether an innings ended because of rain or because a side was bowled out — only rain costs resources.
- Agree the G50 value for your competition before the season starts.