Man who helped revolutionise rain-hit cricket dies aged 84

Speaking in 2007, Duckworth said he recalled hearing BBC Test Match Special commentator Christopher Martin-Jenkins “on the radio, saying ‘surely someone, somewhere, could come up with something better'”.

“I realised that it was a mathematical problem that required a mathematical solution,” he said.

The subsequent Duckworth-Lewis method was first used in the ICC Trophy in Malaysia in 1997 and in 1998, it was applied in New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, India and West Indies.

The International Cricket Council adopted the method for the 1999 World Cup in England and it was adopted on a trial basis for all cricket by the ICC in 2001 before becoming the permanent solution three years later.

It is now known as the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern method after Australian statistician Prof Steven Stern became the custodian of the method following his predecessors’ retirement.

Stern updated the method in 2014 to take into account modern scoring trends and T20 cricket.

The method was used as recently as Monday in the rain-affected World Cup match between Afghanistan and Bangladesh.