CWG 2022: What is Lawn Bowls? Rules, scoring system, and equipment - all you need to know

The Indian women’s lawn bowl team on Tuesday created history at Birmingham Commonwealth Games winning the gold medal as they defeated South Africa in the final of the women's fours format. The Indian team featuring Lovely Choubey, Pinki, Nayamoni Saikia, Rupa Rani Tirkey beat South Africa 17-10 in the final of the Commonwealth Games 2022 to win the nation's first CWG medal in the sport

India first took part in the lawn bowls during the 2010 Commonwealth. While people are not aware of the rules regarding this sport, here take a look at how the sport is played and how India has done so far.

CWG 2022: Lawn Bowls format, rules and scoring pattern 

Format

Lawn Bowls is played on a green surface and have four formats – Singles, Pairs, Triples and Fours. All the formats are named after the number of people in each team.

Rules 

This game starts with rolling the bowl down in the long green stretch in order to place the ball closer to the target, which is called as ‘Jack.’ The team which manages to place the ball closer to the jack wins the points. The 'Jack’ is rolled from one end towards the opposite end and needs to travel at least 23m. After covering the distance the point at which it Stops becomes the final target for the players to place the bowl. Once the target is set each team takes turns rolling their bowls. 

CWG 2022: How many attempts does each team get and how are points determined?

Speaking of attempts in the singles format, each team gets four attempts while in other formats, a team gets two throws per player. In the four-player format, each team gets to throw eight throws, or rolls, from one end. The points are given by the number of bowls a team has managed to place closer to the jack. The scores are then calculated to decide the winner. Speaking of the points format in singles competition, the first player to reach 21 points wins the match. In the remaining formats, the bowl is rolled from 15 ends. The team with the most points after 15 ends of throw wins the contest.

India's performance in Lawn Bowls

While India has been able to consistently finish on the podium in Asian and Asia-Pacific championships the team has not been able to deliver its best performance at the Commonwealth Games over the years. India has taken part in 2010, 2014, and 2018 editions before the 2022 edition. The country has managed to reach the semi-finals just twice and has finished fourth on other occasions.