It often happens in cricket that when a high-profile side like England, India or Australia gets the wrong end of the deal, a fuss is kicked up. There are plenty of examples—England’s unfounded suspicions over reverse-swing in 1992, only to retrieve their next Ashes trophy with the same tactic, the Indian media’s mauling of umpire Steve Bucknor that helped kick off the umpiring review systems in 2008, the international war of words in 1932-33 after Don Bradman and co. had difficulty adjusting to England’s body-line aggression. With such a history, you could forgive mathematician Frank Duckworth for suggesting that the recent deluge (pun intended) over his and Tony Lewis’ Duckworth-Lewis system, which has come under fire after it apparently helped West Indies gleefully slog their way to a truncated target for the second successive time against England, is merely a case of sour grapes (and very, very damp squibs).
Mr. Duckworth defends his system with the forthright candor of, say, a retired pedant who’s just been informed of a worm in the bud of his cherished pedantic work. (A loophole y’ say—bally ridiculous!) The truth, unfortunately, is that in both Twenty20 and 50-over cricket Duckworth Lewis presents a fundamental problem, and that is to rack up the required run-rate for the team chasing.In Twenty20, as England’s captain Paul Collingwood complained, this can just be a simplifier. Daunting though a rate of 10 an over may be, there’s only six overs and one way to get at it, and that’s to fling the bat around. Which is exactly what Chris Gayle and co. did. No need to plan, anchor and mount a run-chase.
Of course, as Duckworth and Lewis would have you know, it’s not that simple. You trying hitting 10 an over against an international attack. A few dot-balls, a couple of wickets could easily crank that required run rate up to gargantuan proportions. It’s just that, despite managing to lose two batsmen to the same Graeme Swann delivery, West Indies were good enough to rack up the runs.
Therein, though, lies the problem of the system—not just in Twenty20s as many observers are saying, but to a lesser extent in 50-over matches. For some reason, it’s pre-supposed that whatever the reasons to truncate the chase—be it a slow over-rate, untimely weather, or crowd trouble—the repercussions must be laid on the team batting second. It’s a grossly unfair situation.
One relatively recent match that illustrated the quirks of the system came in November 2008, with India seeking to take a seven-match series 4-0 against England. Led by Virender Sehwag, India biffed 166 off 22 overs. When Sehwag had begun his spree, there was no reduction of overs, i.e., the match was 50 overs a side (which says something about the Indian opener’s aggression). Fourteen overs into the innings, though, bad weather interrupted proceedings and when the players finally emerged it was a 22-over match, with India having eight more overs to wallop as many as they could.
166 in itself was a strong and potentially decisive score, and India did win, but the catch was that England actually managed to score more than that and still lose. England’s winning target, for no reason other than that they were chasing, was cranked from an already stiff 166 to a positively daunting 199. As it happened, led by Owais Shah, the visitors managed to outplay India for once, crashing 178, and still suffer the ignominy of surrendering the match, and series. Nor is this an isolated incident.
Mr. Duckworth claims that his system, which at present does have no better alternative, has only been found suspect once or twice. That, unfortunately, is not the case, and any pedant worth his salt will tell you that, as with most theories, there’s always room for introspection and improvement.
