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It’s The Bloody Rain Rule Again
Here's the aspect of the Duckworth & Lewis Method that cost South Africa today's semifinal.
The missed run-outs, the dropped catch, New Zealand’s miscues that landed in vacant regions... all these little things added up and led to South Africa’s spectacular exit from the World Cup today. Messrs Duckworth and Lewis played their part, too.
South Africa had positioned themselves brilliantly for a final assault against New Zealand today. They had scored 15, 5 and 12 runs off the first three overs of the batting Powerplay when rain halted play.
When play resumed, the innings was shortened to 43 overs with no further Powerplay overs. And there lay exposed the inherent unfairness of the D/L laws regarding Powerplay.
I quote from a list of FAQs on the rain-rule:
17. Does the D/L method take account of the various rules on fielding restrictions, eg PowerPlay overs?
If any allowance were made for the different scoring abilities for overs with fielding restrictions, then the identities of the different types of overs would have to be input into the target calculation, and this would be a considerable and unwelcome complication for the scorers and would prevent targets and par scores being known instantly they are required. But a thorough analysis of several thousand match scorecards covering the different rules in place over the years has shown that the effects of these rules on scoring patterns are not statistically significant. So no allowance for the effect of rules on fielding restrictions has been considered necessary.
The important bit: “So no allowance for the effect of rules on fielding restrictions has been considered necessary.”
So why was this unfair to South Africa?The D/L Method recognises the typical effect of runs scored in Powerplays as insignificant. But there was nothing insignificant about the batsmen at the crease.
They had AB de Villiers and Faf du Plessis batting with full vigour, with David Miller padded up. These are three of the best hitters in the game. Of the seven overs they had lost, two were from a Powerplay, implying they could have scored, say, 10 more runs by exploiting the three-fielder restriction.
By not making special allowance for the lost Powerplay overs when three of the deadliest hitters in the game were available to South Africa, the revised D/L target of 298 was perhaps lighter by a few runs—runs that may have won South Africa the game.
But then again, so could have all those other missed opportunities. And like all the previous World Cups, this one too would end for South Africa with many "what ifs".
