We receive an inquiry on indication of position by placing a towel on the green.
The jack was in the ditch. Before the skip bowling his wood, his No.3 placed a towel on the green (not on the ditch) but on the lip of the green to signal to the skip the position of the jack in the ditch. This was clearly in breach of law 52 and in the spirit of the game. I did actually try a stop the skip from bowling his wood but failed and he bowled the wood with the offending item still on the green.There was no indication in the Crown Mark rules as to what penalty if any should be imposed we played on. This was clearly in breach of the laws and rather odd for a high division bowler.
Clarification from VP Technical:
Law 34 stated that no object should be placed on the bank, the green, in the ditch, on the jack, on a bowl or anywhere else to help a player. Our common practice is that a bowler can put object such as a towel on the green to indicate where he/she want a team member’s bowl to stay but after indication he/she should lift the towel before the team member bowls. Hanging a towel on top of a jack or bowl to indicate its position is also acceptable.
In this case the bowler placing the towel on the green has obviously breached Law 34, there are no penalty mentioned in the Law book to govern such situation. The only action the opponent can take is under Law 36 where they can report the case as a “Deliberate non-sporting action” and lodge a formal complaint to HKLBA.
Note to Bowlers:
If you need to use an object such as towel to indicate a position, please make sure you remove it before your bowler deliver his/her bowl.