India-West Indies series to be played under revised DLS System

The forthcoming India-West Indies series, starting with the first Test on October 4, will be played under the new version of the Duckworth Lewis System – now named the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern System.

The International Cricket Council has today released the updated version of the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) System along with the new ICC Code of Conduct and ICC Playing Conditions.

The revisions become effective immediately and shall become applicable from the games starting tomorrow (Sunday). The inaugural one-day international of the South Africa-Zimbabwe series will the first international cricket match to be played under the new DLS system, and ICC revised Code of Conduct and Playing Conditions.

This is the third version but second update of the DLS System since its introduction into international cricket in 2014 and has been carried out following a detailed ball-by-ball analysis of scoring patterns, including in the Power-plays, in all limited overs internationals played during the previous four years, ICC has stated in a Press release.

This means the current analysis is based on information from 700 ODIs and 428 T20Is, which comprise over 240,000 outcomes of individual deliveries.

The latest analysis has revealed that teams have been able to extend their acceleration patterns for longer periods, and the average scores in ODIs have continued to increase. This means that par score calculations will assume that teams will be able to score a slightly higher proportion of their runs towards the end of an innings.

In finalizing the updated version, the scoring patterns between ODI (final 20 overs) and T20 were analysed, as were the scoring patterns between men’s and women’s international matches. The study has confirmed that in both cases, while overall scoring rates are obviously different, wicket-adjusted resource utilisation rates are essentially identical.

As such, it has again been confirmed that a single version of the DLS System is compatible with all formats.

The ICC, meanwhile, has also updated its Code of Conduct for the players and the players’ support staff. The changes will come into effect from tomorrow (Sunday). The changes were approved by the ICC Board during the Dublin Annual Conference on 2 July.

Attempting to gain an unfair advantage (cheating, other than ball-tampering) as a level 2,3 offence; personal abuse (level 2, 3 offence); audible obscenity (level 1 offence); and disobeying an umpire’s instructions as a level 1 offence have been included in the Code of Conduct.

Changing the condition of the ball has not been made a level 3 offence as against the level 2 earlier.

Among other changes, the maximum sanction for a level 3 offence has been increased from eight suspension points to 12 suspension points (equivalent to 6 Test matches or 12 ODIs). Match referees will now hear Level 1, 2 and 3 charges with a Judicial Commissioner only hearing Level 4 charges and appeals.

With the ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 less than a year away, the ICC has not made any major changes to the existing playing conditions. There are only a couple of minor tweaks include : Clauses 11.4 (ODI), 11.7 and 12.8 (Tests) – to allow a match to be concluded before a scheduled interval; Clause 19 (Test, ODI and T20I) – Unless the boundary is the maximum 90 yards from the centre of the pitch, the boundary rope cannot be any more than 10 yards from the edge of the available playing area.