1. The Formula in One Line
Everything below hangs off this single relationship:
The work is not the multiplication — it is finding those two resource percentages from what actually happened on the field. If you want the concept behind resources first, the DLS method explained covers it; here we go straight into the numbers.
2. The Scenario
Team 1 bats first and makes 250 in a full 50 overs. Because they used their whole innings, their resources are 100%. Team 2 begins their chase and reaches 120 for 2 after 20 overs. Then rain arrives, and when play resumes the match has been cut to 35 overs total for Team 2 — so instead of the 30 overs they had left, they now have only 15. We need Team 2's revised target.
3. Step 1: Resources Before the Rain
At the moment the rain came, Team 2 had batted 20 of their 50 overs and lost 2 wickets. That means they had 30 overs left with 2 wickets down. The resource table values that position at 67.3% — that is how much scoring resource they still had in hand when play stopped.
4. Step 2: Resources After the Cut
When play resumes, Team 2's innings has been shortened to 35 overs. Having already used 20, they now have only 15 overs left, still 2 wickets down. The table values 15 overs and 2 down at about 42.6%.
Team 2 therefore had 100% − 24.7% = 75.3% of resources available for their whole innings, compared with Team 1's 100%.
5. Step 3: The Revised Target
Now the formula does its work:
Team 2's revised target is 189. Since they were already 120 for 2, they need 69 more runs from their remaining 15 overs to win. That is a demanding but fair ask — the rain cost them overs, so their target came down from 251 to 189, but not so far that they get a soft ride for the wickets they still had.
Every figure here comes straight from our DLS calculator, which runs this same resource logic — enter the scenario and you will get 189.
6. When Team 2 Has More Resources
Occasionally the interruptions leave Team 2 with more resources than Team 1 had — for example if Team 1's innings was cut short but Team 2's was not. Here the method does not simply scale the target up, because that would over-reward Team 2 for runs Team 1 never had the chance to score. Instead it adds the extra using a fixed average total, called G50 (245 in the Standard Edition): Target = Team 1 score + G50 × (extra resource ÷ 100). This keeps the boost realistic rather than explosive.
That switch — scale down when resources are fewer, add a G50 bonus when they are greater — is the one piece of DLS that trips up online calculators that were built quickly. Ours handles both cases, which is why its answers hold up.