The Indian women lawn bowls team created history at the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham on Tuesday by winning a gold medal in the women’s fours format.
The team, consisting of Rupa Rani Tirkey, Pinki, Nayanmoni Saikia and Lovely Choubey, won the Gold medal by beating the South African team.
Our Indian Women team has won a gold gold medal in a sport where most people in their own country do not have any idea about this sport.
A Historic Gold for India in #CommonwealthGames Lawn Bowls!
Absolutely ecstatic that our Women's Fours Team – Lovely Choubey, Pinki , Nayanmoni Saikia & Rupa Rani Tirkey has fetched the nation its first ever #LawnBowls medal defeating South Africa 17-10 in the final ! pic.twitter.com/8Pbio6W0qB
— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) August 2, 2022
What is Lawn Bowls Game?
Bowls are spherical ball-like objects made of wood, rubber or sometimes plastic resin, having flattened sides and a diameter between 112mm and 134mm. The bowls weigh up to 1.59kg and often have indentations on them which allows the players to grip better.
While playing the sport the players stand on either side of a 600mm long and 360mm wide mat and take turns rolling these bowls in an attempt to get closest to the jack and the jack is sometimes of white or yellow colour and is pretty much lighter and smaller than the bowl.
How is it played?
In the fours event, the first bowler is called the lead followed by the second and the third. The last bowler is called the ‘skip’ and that person is the leader of the team. Each team member gets two bowls per round and when all eight bowlers have bowled twice, the teams switch sides.
And at the end of each round points are given to the respective teams that has it’s bowls close to the skip and each match ends after 15 rounds and whichever team has higher points is the winner of the game.
In a world, where most of us (Indians) don’t comprehend Lawn Bowls, Our girls have just bagged a #GoldMedal for us. Amazingly unbelievable!! Kudos to their hard work and equanimity. #LawnBowls #CWG2022 #IndiaTaiyaarHai #India4CWG2022 pic.twitter.com/U6Vxb1YxUF
— Vijay KR (@vijjuzone) August 2, 2022
India’s Participation in Lawn games
The Year 2010 was the first time Indian Lawn Bowls team participated in the commonwealth games and after that in the year 2014 and in 2018. And the last best Indian women Lawn Bowls team was in 2010 where they got 4th rank.
So far England has won the most number of medals in the game, followed by Australia and South Africa with 50 and 44 medals and England has won 51 medals in total in commonwealth games.
When the Indian team has won a gold medal in this game, more and more young children will get motivated to pursue this sport and not only one but several medals India will win in Future.