What is lawn bowling and How to play this game
Lawn bowling is one of the most known games in bowling sports. The game looks pretty simple, just throwing a ball to the object ball as near as possible. But there are some rules for this game too. In this article, I will tell you how to play lawn bowling and give you ideas about different lawn game aspects.
What is lawn bowling
Lawn game is a bowling game where the player tries to roll a bowl towards the jack and they aim to roll it as near as possible to the jack. The jack is a standard round shape ball that is typically white-colored. But the balls used by the players for scoring points are not round-shaped, they are curved a bit. This curved shape helps them to roll over the surface and stop as near as possible to the jack.
The objective of lawn bowling
The objective of the game is quite simple and easy. The player or the team tries to throw a lawn bowl along the surface and do it at a speed that would stop the ball near the jack. It is vital to have one or more balls near the jack more than your opponents because the winner of the game will be decided by counting the number of balls near the jack.
Equipment required for lawn bowling
For lawn bowling, you need three things mainly. These are lawn bowling set, jack, measuring tape.
- Four bowls are used for scoring points by each team in the lawn bowling game. The balls are not round in shape. They are biased and offer a curved shape. So when you roll the bowl along the surface, it runs towards the jack or target ball through a curved path. These bowls are larger than jack or target balls.
- Jack: Jack is also a must thing you need to have on the field for lawn bowling. Jack or target balls are smaller than lawn bowls. They are proper round in shape and unbiased. At the start of the game, a jack is thrown or let to roll over the grassy surface to set the game’s target. And where the jack stops, the target of the game is set up there. You have to roll the bowl as near as possible to the jack to score points.
- Measuring tape: You can’t decide the match’s result by just measuring the length of the distance between lawn balls and jack only with your eyes, that’s for sure. For having the accurate result of the match, you need to use a measuring tape to find out the closest bowl near the jack and decide the winner of the game.
Lawn bowling surface
Lawn bowling game is played on a green surface, which is square-shaped. The surface measures 32 to 40 meters at each end. Inside the surface, there are six rinks designed. Each of the rinks measures around 4.3 to 5.8 meters. The surface is green colored and it is smoother enough to make the balls roll.
Lawn bowling dress code
Like other sports, lawn bowling also demands a little bit of dress code. Let’s discuss this below in detail.
- For the top part: For the top part of the body, you should wear a comfortable t-shirt issued by your team or club. The t-shirt needs to be different than the other team. Try to wear a t-shirt, which is not tight in fitting as this will make you feel uncomfortable as the game progresses on.
- Bottom part: You can wear trousers or shorts depending on your comfort zone at the bottom. According to the official lawn bowling rules, players should wear grey color trousers or shorts for competitive matches and white color trousers or shorts for friendly matches. But you can also wear your team’s trousers or shorts.
- Shoe: There is only one fact for the shoes. You have to wear flat shoes for lawn bowling to have a better grip on the grassy surface.
Lawn bowling ball size
Lawn bowling balls size ranges from 00 to 7. If I measure the size in cm, then the size ranges from 11.6 cm to 13.1 cm. For men, regulation size lawn bowling balls size is 3 to 5 and for women, the ball’s size is 0 to 2. The weight of the balls varies depending on the size.
How to play lawn bowl
You need to know the rules or playing lawn ball method before going inside the playing surface. Now let’s discuss how to play this game.
- First, make the playing surface ready for starting the game.
- Divide all the players into two teams to start the proceedings. A team can consist of one player, two or even more. But you have to make sure that each team has an equal number of players.
- Then toss a coin to decide which team is going to roll the jack along the surface. Each team will have a captain and the captain of the toss winning team will roll the jack along the green grassy surface. The captain should stand at the end of a rink and roll the jack.
- The jack must roll at least 23 meters and not touch the end line of the surface. After the jack stops, it is placed in the middle of the court, keeping the distance the same. Thus the target of the game is set.
- Then it’s time to roll the lawn bowls towards the jack. A player from each team will roll the bowl along the surface alternatively. All of them will try to take the ball as near as possible to the jack.
Scoring system
After the rolling session of both teams comes to an end, it’s time to decide the winner. The game umpire will measure which team’s bowl is placed nearest to the jack and how many. Thus he will give points to the team counting the number of closest bowls and declare the winner of the game.
Final words
I think before going on to play a lawn game for the first time, you must read this article once. This article contains everything you need to know about playing lawn bowling. So happy lawn bowling…..