The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : There has been precedent

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Tuesday, Nov 25, 2008
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There has been precedent

Mohandas Menon

The D/L method applied in the recent ODI at Bangalore illustrates how a higher target for the team batting second is fixed when the delay occurs in the first innings.

The reason here is that England knew it had only 22 overs at the start of the innings and would have been able to pace itself accordingly, as opposed to India scoring its runs off 22 overs interrupted on two occasions. The Indian ba tsman, when they started their innings, had no idea that their innings would be restricted to just 22 overs.

This method was first used on January 1, 1997, at Harare, in a match between Zimbabwe and England. The home team, batting first, made 200 in 48.5 overs. Rain caused a delay before England could start its innings and the visiting side was set a target of 185 off 42 overs.

England replied with 179 for seven in 42 overs to lose the match by 6 runs.

It should also be noted here that over a period of time the D/L method has undergone some changes to suit cricket’s current requirements.

Exactly 100 ODI matches have been decided by this method, up to the Bangalore ODI.

There have been twenty instances of teams batting second chasing bigger totals than the ones made by the teams batting first, since January 1999. Some of those are listed here.

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