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Indra may be the god of rains but for followers of cricket, a ‘holy’ trinity presides over rainfall during matches – Duckworth, Lewis and Sterns.
The same ‘DLS’ threat looms large over the semifinal of the ICC World Cup between India and New Zealand, after play was deferred to the reserve day following incessant rains on Tuesday, 9 July.
The forecast for Wednesday – with a high chance of persistent rain spells – will surely complicate the crucial game of cricket further.
Cricket, a sport so simple that even Bhuvan's team mastered it in 3 months and beat the English at their own game. #TeenGunaLagaan.
But there’s one aspect of this simple sport that, perhaps, nobody quite understands. Not the cricketers, not the pundits and most probably you don’t either – the Duckworth-Lewis-Sterns (DLS) Method.
With World Cup 2019 being the rainiest of all since the first edition in 1975, there was always a good chance that we would see DLS in action again. It has already been employed once in the India vs Pakistan match on 16 June and will most likely come into play in the first semifinal as well.
A homegrown desi system, the VJD Method, designed by V Jayadevan from Thrissur, has been demonstrated to be more accurate than DLS.
He recalls that in 1999 two articles appeared in The Hindu. One was on the merits of the Duckworth-Lewis method and the other on its demerits. “When I saw the second one, I realised my method has certain advantages over the Duckworth and Lewis method. From that point, I took it seriously,” he added.
“Yes, ICC was very unfair to me in this matter. Right from 2000 I have been asking ICC to give me a chance to make a presentation in front of the cricketing committee,” Jaydevan said.
Jayadevan said that for almost 10 years, he would identify the drawbacks of the Duckworth-Lewis method every time they revised it and send it to the ICC. The governing body would then rectify them in the next version.
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