This is an enquiry received from a bowler Percy Chan – STSA, December 13, 2016.
While watching videos, the recent World Bowls Championships 2016, Pairs/Triples/Fours Finals, I have observed that, while all players (except the skips) have finished their bowls, the skip A, (the first permitted) walks down to the mat, whereas, the opposing skip B stays at head till skip A to deliver his first bowl before walking down to the mat.
While chatting with some bowlers, most said that above practice is not eligible in HK as there’s conflict with “Restricting Movements of Players”. However, there are also disputes that, “there is no movement of the captioned skip, he just stays”, thus such practice is eligible.
For HK League/National games, can we carry the above practice? (i.e. skip stays at head till…..), is this eligible?
Would appreciate your formal guidance.
Percy Chan – STSA
Response from VP-Technical:
The main purpose of the “Restricting movement of Players” rules is to ensure a game is played without any delay. In Hong Kong we have adopted the current practice of both skippers needed to move to the delivery end when their Thirds finished bowling. Such practice also prevented the second skipper from gaining advantage of watching the position of the opposing skip’s bowl before his/her first bowl.
Different countries may have their own interpretation of such rules and I understand that there were queries about this during the World Championship. I did not see any major fault in such arrangement and the current practice worked well for our environment. This will be continued until there is a change in global rules.
Comment from Ronnie Yip – FC
I refer to your reply on this forum to Percy Chan on the above subject and offer my comment as follows :
World Bowls Law A 4.3 clearly states that ” when a player at the head walks up to the mat to deliver their first bowl , their direct opponent can remain at the head until that bowl has come to rest before walking up to the mat to deliver their first bowl.”
Please advise is Law A 4.3 still adopted in Hong Kong. Thank you.
Response from VP-Technical:
In Hong Kong we will continue to impose our local rule of “both skips need to return to the mat before the first skip deliver the first bowl”.
Law A 4.3 does not apply here.