When rain shortens a limited-overs match, simply scaling the target by overs lost would be unfair, because a side with ten wickets in hand can bat far more aggressively than one with two. The Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method fixes that by treating overs remaining and wickets in hand together as a team’s batting resources.
How the target moves
If the side batting second loses more of its resources to the weather than the first side did, its target comes down. If it loses fewer, for example because the interruption happened during the first innings, the target can go up.
When a result counts
For a result to stand, each side must have had the chance to face at least 20 overs in an ODI or five overs in a T20. The method was originally Duckworth-Lewis and was renamed after statistician Steven Stern updated it for modern scoring rates.
