To ensure a medal, the Indian women’s lawn bowls team defeated New Zealand 16-13 in the semi-finals. They will be playing South Africa in the finals today, on August 2nd. India will eagerly be waiting for the season’s 4th gold. The Indian team at Birmingham comprises Lovely Choubey, Pinki, Nayamoni Saikia, and Rupa Rani Tirkey. Although the sport has been played at the Commonwealth Games since its inception in 1930, India has been participating since only 2010. Prior to 2022, India has at the most reached semi-finals. On both the 2 occasions where India reached semis, they missed a medal closely, finishing at number 4. Here have a look at everything about the Lawn Bowls Game in Commonwealth Games 2022.
Lawn Bowls Game in Commonwealth Games 2022
History
Lawn Bowls’ origins go back to ancient Egypt. However, the game’s version we now know has its origins in Rome. In England, kings, and queens used to play lawn bowling. Later, they went ahead to ban the lower classes of society to play the game. As the British had colonies across the globe, the game got popular in those territories. To date, the Commonwealth countries have blooming bowling communities. the Commonwealth Games were first played in 1930, and lawn bowling has been a central part of the event since then.
Format
Lawn Bowls has 4 formats in all, which are named after the number of players involved- Singles, Pairs, Triples, and Fours.
Rules
The game is played on a green surface where the players’ aim is to roll biased bowls to the Jack, which is a smaller bowl, the target. A Lawn bowl weighs around 1.5kg. Since the ball is slightly heavier on one side enabling the players to curl it, the sport is also known as biased bowling. The aim is to reach closer to the target than the opponents. Then, the teams or the single players take turns to reach closest to the Jack.
Points system
In singles, each player gets 4 chances to roll. Whereas in the other 3 team formats, each player gets 32 rolls. Since the game is played in 4 formats the pointing systems too differ a bit. For single players, whosoever is the first to reach 21 points win the game. However, in teams (Pairs, triples, and Fours) there is a specific number of rolls (18) that are to be played. Later, the highest scoring team is the winner. the aim is to have more bowls closer to the target than the other teams.
