DLS Calculator — Rain-Rule Target Estimator

A DLS calculator you can check line by line

When rain shortens a one-day or T20 match, the side batting second gets a revised target from the Duckworth–Lewis–Stern (DLS) method. This DLS calculator estimates that target and the par scores along the way. Enter Team 1’s total and when play stopped — overs bowled, wickets down and the new length of the innings — and it shows the resources each side had, the target, the working and a par score sheet for every over and wicket.

Be clear about what it is: an estimate. Official targets come from licensed DLS software and resource tables that are not public. This page applies the published “Standard Edition” rules to resources from the published Duckworth–Lewis model, fitted to open ball-by-ball data. If you have the official resource percentages, switch to the second mode and the arithmetic is exact.

How to use the DLS Target Estimator

1. Enter Team 1 total (S) and choose G50: 245 for men’s internationals and first-class teams, 200 for women’s ODIs and associate matches.
2. Set the overs per innings at the start (50 or 20) and Team 2’s overs at the start of their innings.
3. For each stoppage, press Add stoppage and enter the overs bowled, wickets down and the overs per innings after the restart. If the innings ended, use the overs bowled.
4. Read the revised target, R1 and R2 and the working. Open the par score sheet to follow the chase over by over.
5. Use Check Team 2’s position to see whether the chasing side is ahead of par if no more play is possible.
6. Have the official percentages? Choose I have official resource % and enter R1 and R2.

DLS Target Estimator features

How the revised target is worked out

Each side’s run-scoring resources depend on overs left and wickets lost. When a stoppage cuts overs, the resource lost is the resource remaining when play stopped minus the resource remaining at the restart, at the same number of wickets. R1 and R2 are the resources each side actually had, as a percentage of a full 50-over innings.

If R2 is less than R1, Team 2’s par is S × R2 ÷ R1, rounded down, and the target is par + 1. If R2 is greater, the Standard Edition adds runs instead of scaling: par = S + (R2 − R1) × G50 ÷ 100, rounded down. These rules, and the G50 values of 245 and 200, are set out in the England and Wales Cricket Board’s document Duckworth/Lewis/Stern methodology of re-calculating the target score in an interrupted match (March 2025). The same document notes that the full DLS method raises targets by the resource ratio rather than with G50, and the ICC’s software includes further refinements for high-scoring matches — another reason official figures can differ.

Where the resource percentages come from

Duckworth and Lewis modelled the average runs still to come with u overs left and w wickets down as Z(u, w) = Z₀F(w)[1 − e^−bu/F(w)] (Journal of the Operational Research Society, 1998 and 2004). They never published the fitted values. This calculator fits the same equation to Cricsheet’s open ball-by-ball data: the first innings of 2,206 completed, uninterrupted men’s 50-over internationals from June 2002 to October 2026. Resource = Z(u, w) ÷ Z(50, 0).

Because modern teams score faster late in an innings, this fit gives more resources to short innings than older published tables did, something Steven Stern’s revision of the method, adopted by the ICC in 2014, also reflects in its own way. Treat targets here as a well-founded guide for club scorers, fans and students, not as the umpires’ figure.

Tips for scorers

• Most playing conditions need a minimum number of overs for Team 2 — commonly 20 in ODIs and 5 in T20s — before a result can be decided on par. Check your competition’s rules.
• Penalty runs and DLS results affect net run rate too; the net run rate calculator follows the ICC clause for rain-affected matches.
• Planning a rain-hit tournament? Draw the knockout with the tournament bracket generator.