Indian ladies create history in Lawn Bowls
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Indian women's Lawn Bowls team
For a nation starved of sporting heroes, and heroines, winning any medal is a big deal. On Monday, in Birmingham, Lovely Chaubey, Pinki, Nayanmoni Saikia, and Rupa Rani Tirkey made it to the lawn bowls final by defeating New Zealand 16-13 in the semi-final of the Commonwealth Games. In the final, the Indian ladies will meet South Africa.
Assured of a silver medal, the Indian lawn bowls Four teams have already made news, at least on social media. Photos of the team released through the official SAI Media handle show how the ladies are a picture of confidence.
For those not conversant with lawn bowls, this sport was held even at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. At that time, there was a brouhaha over so much money being spent to lay the synthetic turf for the competition. It was technical in nature and laying the surface involved agencies from abroad.
For the average fan, then, in 2010, shooting, hockey, swimming, athletics, badminton, and even tennis was the star attraction. Given the DNA of sports viewers in New Delhi, the “pass culture” had led to people hanging outside the offices of big sports officials. Yet, when buying tickets had become a problem, a few did go to the lawn bowls arena, near the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in South Delhi.
Twelve years hence, who would have thought the women would be making headlines by assuring the nation of a silver medal. Mind you, on Monday, India was down against New Zealand and then staged a comeback.
What is Lawn Bowls’ history and what is India’s connection with it?
There are many who still wonder whether lawn bowls is a new sport. No, it is not. Tracing the history of the game, it is clear this sport existed as long ago as 7,000 years. The sport has undergone many changes, since the time it was first played. History reveals even during the days of the Egyptians kings and commoners played this sport. At that time, stone balls were used for rolling and striking objects. The scoring pattern was simple and the surface used then was grass.
These days, when the sport has undergone a metamorphosis, surfaces have changed. If hockey saw the transition from natural grass to Astro turfs and synthetic turfs, a similar trend began over four decades ago in tennis, basketball, and a few more sports. Synthetic surfaces involved initial capital investment. But after that, the surface became all weather.
Lawn bowls, too, has a similar advantage. The synthetic surface has a mild, outward slope. To the naked eye, rolling the ball seemed simple. In the good old days, even William Shakespeare described how lawn bowls were taking too much time of the common man and it was played all over Britain. The monarchy wanted the commoners to stay away. finally!
In India, at present, we do not have too many lawn bowling surfaces and complexes. Bowling does exist, in malls, and rolling the heavy ball to hit the objects brings joy. There is a similarity of sorts between bowling alleys and modern lawn bowls. Yet, to be part of the Indian sporting system means, that the ladies have undergone training and come through selection trials.
The ball, or bowl, weighs close to 1.5kg and has to be rolled at a distance of close to 23 meters. It involves the coordination of the body. Rolling the ball too hard may be wrong. Getting the right speed and angle makes it scientific, which shows the Indian women would have trained hard. After all, this is not like kabaddi or kho-kho, where the technicalities are much less.
Emotions fly high at Birmingham
To be sure, England dominated this sport in the Commonwealth Games, winning 51 medals. For the Indian ladies to storm the bastion is great news. This is in the format called “team fours.” There is a men’s team as well in the fray.
“We cannot express our feelings in mere words. We have fought as a team and now our journey doesn’t end here,” an emotional lawn bowler Tirkey said later.
“We have to play in a similar fashion against South Africa and do what hasn’t been done before,” she added. Indeed, the Indian ladies are the toast of the nation as breaking new pastures brings great joy.
For the record, lawn bowls can be played in singles, doubles, and fours as teams. Competing in fours has shown a new dimension with Nari Shakti coming to the fore.
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S Kannan
(382 Articles Published)