Last Saturday, August 9, saw the Kingdom’s top lawn bowls players descend on the Coco Club just outside Pattaya to take part in the playoff trials for the Thailand national team selection for the upcoming Asian Games, to be held later this year.
An entry field saw 6 men and 6 ladies take part but only 5 of each were required so it was a long, tough day of extremely good class bowls. Endurance also played a part with some players suffering from foot and hand cramps – in lawn bowls!
Thailand’s top bowls players relax after a long day.
The day started at 9 a.m. with the draw and was followed by 30 matches, with the winner of each being the first to reach 12 points. The shortest game turned out to be 8 ends and the longest 18 ends with a total of 358 ends of bowls at an average of 12 ends per match. By 6 p.m. everyone knew they had had a few games, many of which went down to the wire. In the end it turned out the 5 men from Bangkok took the men’s places on the team and the 5 ladies – all of whom are members at Coco Club – took the ladies’ spots.
All the games were supervised by international referees from Australia, England and Scotland. We wish them well and further training starts very soon.
