T20 cricket and Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method: Stephen Fleming expresses concern

Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) coach Stephen Fleming has stated concerns over evaluation of target for the rain-affected T20 matches.

Rising Pune Supergiant (RPS) coach Stephen Fleming has stated concerns over evaluation of target for the rain-affected T20 matches. One of the most crucial matches of Indian Premier League (IPL) 2017, the Eliminator, was affected by rain, bringing down the target for Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to below par, which made the game predictable and one-sided. Fleming, describing the current Duckworth-Lewis method, pointed out the fact that most of the time the team batting second gets the advantage. READ: Decoding the complexity of D/L method visually

Fleming told EspnCricinfo, “The D/L method is satisfactory for 100 overs, but in a 40-over game, it simply favours the team batting second too much. With low-scoring games on difficult pitches, whenever the overs are reduced, the team batting second will always have an edge because they stand a far lower chance of being bowled out, so they can stay a lot more relaxed.

“In a situation like Wednesday night, even though there has been a small increase in runs required and there’s pressure on the team batting second owing to a reduction in the number of overs, they still have all wickets in hand which means they can play without risk. Even losing three wickets in approximately one over doesn’t really hamper them; they know they can just keep going because they have plenty of batting resources to fall back on.”

He also stressed on introducing the wicket-factor in consideration in such cases.

“The whole scenario just isn’t ideal and definitely needs a bit of tweaking. One of the ideas floating around is to introduce ‘wicket pressure’, so if you have a small chase, then you also have fewer wickets to play with. In effect, that means you only have five wickets, for example, for a six-over chase.”