The Indian women’s quartet of Rupa Rani Tirkey, Nayanmoni Saikia, Lovely Choubey, and Pinki Singh have secured India’s first-ever CWG medal in lawn bowls, after defeating New Zealand by 16-13.

They didn’t have a great start to the event, succumbing to a 5-0 deficit by the second end. But in the next seven ends, the Indian quartet stood up to the occasion to drag the score to 7-7. In the end-10, they went ahead by 10-7 before Rani Tirkey rolled down the winner to seal the game by 16-13. 

While the silver medal is confirmed, the Indian team have a chance to convert it into gold when they meet South Africa in the final. This is going to be India’s seventh medal at the event, and the colour will be decided on Tuesday. 

Meet The Indian Team

The Indian team was led by a seasoned player Lovely Choubey, who is ranked inside top ten for both women’s pair and women’s four. She participated in Glasgow Olympics as well, but fell agonisingly short of the bronze medal. 

Rupa Rani Tirkey is the skip of the Indian women’s four. Before Birmingham, Rupa participated in all three preceding Commonwealth Games. In 2018, she missed out on the medal after losing to Malta in the quarter-finals.

Like Rani, Pinki Singh (second) has also represented India on three occasions in Commonwealth, before finally winning the elusive medal in Birmingham. Pinky works as a physical education teacher at DPS RK Puram.

Nayanmoni Saikia is 33, and she is from Assam. Saikia used to be a weightlifter before a recurring leg injury brought a premature halt to her career. But she always kept herself occupied in different sports, and chose lawn bowls since it’s an injury-free sport.

What Is Lawn Bowls?

The game is played using a spherical ball, also known as a bias ball, since it’s heavier on one side for the ball to traverse curvilinear motion. It weighs exactly 1.5kg, and the players curl this ball towards a target known as a jack. The game starts with a rolling of jack from one team, and it must travel at least 23m, or else the second team will attempt that.

Once the jack settles in on a green lawn, both sides now attempt to curl the ball towards it, with the objective of getting the ball closest to the jack. The number of turns depends on the formats. In the women’s four, in which India reached the final, the team is allowed two throws per member. 

How Does The Point System Works?

As the team tries to roll the bowl towards jack, they get rewarded on the basis of the proximity of their strike. More the number of bowls a team places closer to the target, the better their probability of winning gets. If the team throws two bowls closer than the opponent’s closest ball to the jack, they get two points.

In the individual event, a player to reach 21 points at the earliest win. In the team event, whichever side has more points after the end of pre-specified sets, wins the game.

Featured Image Credit: Twitter/@WeAreTeamIndia