India's lawn bowls pioneers: How a team of four bowled over a nation

After 2007 National Games, Assam and Jharkhand emerged as hubs of a fringe sport now capturing eyeballs thanks to the Commonwealth Games glory

“For most people it’s a new thing, and so you are intrigued by it. Maybe you will learn more about it soon,” Farzana Khan says, speaking from the sidelines of the state selection trials for the National Games next month. “For us, the players, the grind goes on. I’m here now for the trials. There are 11 of us, fighting for two places in the team. So yes, it’s a big day for us, even today…”

Khan, employed by the Jharkhand police and posted in Ranchi, is one of many lawn bowl players the state has produced over the years. She also doubles up as a coach for the age group teams (she was assistant coach of the Jharkhand 21 girls’ team at the Khelo India Youth Games 2020 in Guwahati). The coach of the senior team, at the same games, was Lovely Choubey, who was part of the Indian women’s bowling team that won gold at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham last week. Rupa Rani Tirkey, whose calm, final shot landed India the gold, is also from Jharkhand and widely regarded as among the veterans in the circuit.

A long jumper in her youth, Choubey’s dreams of athletics medals ended because of a hip injury, courtesy bad coaching and mentoring. Dejected, she was whiling her time away when Madhukant Pathak approached her to give this quaint sport a try.

Pathak, a former cricket umpire, had been introduced to the sport by the Waugh brothers Mark and Steve when he travelled to Australia in 2003. “They played it at home and said it was good to build concentration,” Pathak says. “To me it seemed like a game Indians would be good at, because there was no physicality required. It was a game of pure skill and brains.”

Pathak stuck around, trained to become a coach and came back to Jharkhand to put together a large group of players — “many of them had been rejected or given up other sports” — in Ranchi to form a team. The sport was part of the 2007 National Games in Assam — the state built the first greens in the country for it. Jharkhand followed suit, the two states still the only ones with fully functioning greens available for all to train at.

“The RCGC (Royal Calcutta Golf Club) in Kolkata is older,” Farzana says, “but not everyone can access that.” Inevitably, Jharkhand and Assam dominated the game in the early days, often their players forming the crux of the contingent (even today three of four members in the women’s fours, and two of the men’s fours come from Jharkhand and Assam).

Tirkey and Khan were part of the India lawn bowl contingent for the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Khan took part in the singles, while Tirkey was part of the women’s triple team that lost to Australia in the semi-finals and subsequently lost to England in the bronze playoff. In 2018, the fours team of Khan, Choubey, Tirkey and Nayamoni Saikia were knocked out in the quarters. Sandwiched between the two was Glasgow, where no Indian women’s team went into the knockouts at all.

“So, you can understand, that there have been a lot of close misses,” Choubey says, “A lot of pain. A lot of introspection, and of course not being taken seriously.”

But this time last week, on prime-time television no less, the quartet of Choubey, Tirkey, Saikia and Pinki Singh turned neglect into success, first beating New Zealand in the semis and then South Africa in the final to win India’s first ever gold in the event. Suddenly, Choubey, Tirkey, Singh and Saikia were mainstream, their stories splashed across the media and the sport surging through the Indian consciousness. Sachin Tendulkar tweeted support while stories revealed that M S Dhoni was a fan and often dropped into the Ranchi greens to play a bit.

A change of ends
 

In the aftermath of the victory, many reports suggested that Tirkey may be calling an end to her career, with Birmingham her last outing at the international level. Choubey, 42, is among the pioneers of the game, and while there is no age limit for the sport (George Miller, 75, became the oldest medallist at the Commonwealth Games, when he won gold in the mixed pairs on Friday, August 5) there is a desire among all of them to try and push the legacy forward by inducting youngsters through.

“We’ll be there at the National Games next month, and while we know that it will be a tough competition, the truth is that actually we need more depth in the sport,” Choubey says. “More states need to play it, there needs to be more greens available, more youngsters brought in. Hopefully this medal will change some perceptions, and it won’t just be one and done.”

Pathak also rues the lack of match exposure and competitions on a regular basis. The Commonwealth Games is the only multi-sport global event that has lawn bowls as part of its schedule — as it has since 1930 — but there is little chance of it going to other places soon. He hopes that the barn-burning women’s final, its immediate popularity and the simplicity of the game’s rules would help register its popularity among the general populace.

One thing is certain, that high from the women’s gold has sustained. And for good reason, too. Drama is essential to the Indian subconscious and without it sport means little. The men’s fours team took their roles as protagonists of high drama very seriously in their semis final against the hosts. Trailing 10-12 after 14 ends (see box for rules) the Indians produced a miracle, winning the tie 13-12. In a sport where scoring more than one point in an end is an anomaly, especially at the end of a tie, they had done the impossible. The team went down to Northern Ireland in the final, but history had already been made. Two medals from one Games, and a boost in viewership to boot.

Khan summed it up best. “Pichle hafte lawn bowls Google karte toh shayad Wikipedia khulta tha,” she laughs. “Ab news dikhta hai sabse pehle.” (If you searched lawn bowls on Google it would perhaps show Wikipedia. Now, the news flashes first.)

Bowls rules

·  The game can be played in four formats — singles, pairs, triples and fours. In the fours event, each player gets to bowl the ball twice in one round (called an end). A match is conducted over 15 ends.

·  Play starts with one team rolling the jack (a yellow ball) to the other end of the green. It has to roll a minimum of 23m away for the game to begin. The two teams then try to get their bowls (biased balls weighted on one side to make them curl) as close as they can to the jack.

·  Points are awarded at the end of each end to the teams with their bowls closest to the jack. If team A has three bowls closer to the jack than Team B’s closest bowl, they then get three points.