The Indian men’s fours team won the silver medal in lawn bowls at the Commonwealth Games 2022 after losing to Northern Ireland in the gold medal match, here on Saturday.
The men’s fours team of Sunil Bahadur, Navneet Singh, Chandan Kumar Singh and Dinesh Kumar lost 5-18 to England in the final at Victoria Park at Royal Leamington Spa.
This was India’s second medal in lawn bowls after the women’s fours team won a historic gold medal earlier at Birmingham 2022. For Northern Ireland, it was a fifth Commonwealth Games gold medal in lawn bowls and a second one in the men’s fours after 1998.
In the final, Northern Ireland began in fine fashion, racing to a 7-0 lead by the fourth end. The Indian lawn bowls team won its first point of the final only on the fifth end. India made it 7-2 by the sixth end but Northern Ireland soon regained their hold on the tie, making it 10-2 on the seventh end which soon ballooned to 13-5 by the 11th end.
The Northern Irish team was more accurate with their bowls, choosing the best lines to get it close to the jack and ensuring that there was no virtually no way past for the Indian bowls, moving to a 17-5 lead after the 13th end, an olympics.com report said.
On the 14th end, the Indian team had three bowls closer to the jack before the last roll but Northern Ireland managed to squeeze one in to go up 18-5 and win the gold medal as India could at most make up eight points in the 15th and final end, which would not have been enough to upstage their opponents.
(Inputs from IANS)