DLS and inept batting banish India at Perth

At Perth, it was huge disappointment as Indian team played poorly – the ridiculous  rain-rule known as DLS method,  is to be blamed partly and more so, the lack of understanding such rule and adapting to it is to be blamed – Captain, Coach should take the blame for this !! – it is not mad hitting but losing lesser wickets, a critical calculator in DLS !!

 

First it was an outstanding looking Optus Stadium at Perth  that has total capacity of  61,266, primarily used for Australian rules football and cricket. The Stadium   on the Burswood Peninsula overlooks  Swan river. 

It was double disappointment as Indian Women too crashed out of World cup from seemingly sure win position.  Smriti Mandhana has taken the blame for India's batting collapse against England on Sunday night at their women's World Cup match in Indore, where they went from needing a-run-a-ball 57 with seven wickets in hand to a four-run defeat.  Chasing 289 for a win, Mandhana was dismissed for 88 off 94 balls in the 42nd over, and from there they slipped to 262 for 6 by the 47th and just couldn't get the final impetus with left-arm spinners Sophie Ecclestone and Linsey Smith bowling six of the last nine overs.

 

The rain marred Men’s match scorecard reads :  Australia 131 for 3 (Marsh 46*) beat India 136 for 9 (Rahul 38) by seven wickets (DLS squad).  Mitchell Marsh spoiled counterpart Shubman Gill's ODI captaincy debut.   Luckily Travis Head's recent patchy form continued as he slashed left-arm quick Arshdeep Singh straight to deep third man but it was all Aussie way !!  It was a disappointing ODI return for India since their Champions Trophy triumph in March. Their batting order was not helped by numerous rain delays as the covers were used for the first time at Optus Stadium since the ground opened in 2018.  

During the brief passages of play, their top order struggled to handle the back of a length bowling from Australia's trio of quicks.   Rohit made a scratchy 8 while Kohli fared even worse after falling for an eight-ball duck. Hazlewood utilised the bouncy conditions to menacing effect, bowling 35 dot balls in his brilliant spell of 2 for 20 from seven overs.  Towards death, Indian batsmen failed to read left-arm spinner Matt Kuhnemann.    

Australia put India into bat after winning the toss and got off to a flyer with the ball. The much-awaited return of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli didn’t go to plan as both were caught behind the wicket for 8 and 0 off the bowling of Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc respectively. Shubman Gill was then caught down the leg side in the ninth over, when the first rain break came. It lasted long enough to reduce the match to a 49-overs-a-side contest. But the second break was a much longer one, lasting close to two hours and shortening the game to 35 overs each. Shreyas Iyer failed.  Though the match was reduced to 26 overs, the batsmen could not accelerate and only some lusty hits of Nitish Kumar Reddy took them to 136/9.   

Indians were struggling at 25/3 in 8.5 when the first rain intervention came – match was reduced to 49 overs; second break came at 11.5 when India was 37/3  - match reduced to 32 overs; third came in 16.4 – India 52/4 and match reduced to 26. Ludicrously the target became 131 !!  Clearly India could not pace its innings due to rain breaks – yet were penalized badly.  The reduction was not equitable!  

The DLS method considers two primary resources for scoring runs: overs remaining and wickets in hand. An initial 50-over innings starts with 100% resources.  India's innings had multiple interruptions, which forced them to accelerate at less than ideal times. According to analysts, India was not able to use their resources as effectively as they would have in an uninterrupted innings.  In contrast, Australia's innings began with a clear, defined target and a full 26 overs to bat, allowing them to better pace their chase. When India batted,   Mitchell Starc (6-1-22-1) and Josh Hazlewood (7-2-20-2) combined to bowl 13 overs, totalling up to 50 per cent of 26 overs.  .. .. and Indian batters failed to capitalize Matthew Kuhnemann, the left-arm spinner bowling in death and returning figures of 4-0-26-2.

"I don't think too many people understand that method but it's been there for a long time. There was an Indian who had come up with the VJD method, which I thought was a lot better because it made things even for both the teams. And the BCCI uses the VJD method in domestic cricket, not sure now," Sunil Gavaskar said on India Today.  

The names of Frank Duckworth & Tony Lewis are known  to every Cricket fan.  It is the rain rule or rather how scores will be calculated when it rains in the midst of a match.  Rain rules are indeed strange;  Frank was a consultant statistician and editor of the Royal Statistical Society's monthly news magazine, RSS NEWS. Tony was a lecturer in mathematical subjects in the Faculty of Computer Studies and Mathematics at the University of the West of England, Bristol and chairman of the Western Branch of the Operational Research Society.  

On 22nd Mar 1992  - SA will ever curse the rule…. Victories over Australia, West Indies, Pakistan, India and Zimbabwe had propelled the reemerging SA all the way to the semi-finals.   Chasing 253 in 45 overs – rain  interrupted play for 12 minutes with South Africa 231/6 off 42.5 overs and the over limit was reduced to 43 overs with the target reduced by 1 to 252. So suddenly after the rain, the target became 21 off a single delivery….. !!!!

 
Regards – S Sampathkumar
20.10.2025