Anytime the dodgy Duckworth-Lewis method kicks in, you may as well buy a lottery ticket.
With a delayed start at Pukekura Park, New Plymouth, the demands became more unreasonable for the Devon Hotel Central Districts Stags when rain kicked in during the Northern Districts Knights' innings.
"We would have needed a top start to be in with a shout," CD spinner Tarun Nethula said after the visitors claimed a 151-run victory after numbers were crunched under the DL method.
The 50-over Ford Trophy affair was reduced to a 38-over one but the peripheral impact of Cyclone Lusi meant CD captain Kieran Noema-Barnett and his men had to chase down the Knights' innings of 270-8 in a further reduced target.
"It was a delayed start and halfway through ND's innings it rained so it became a 33-over chase for CD," the Stags spinner explained.