World Indoor Championships - Day Five

Thursday 23^rd January

Well what a game last night between Greg and Darren. It had everything. The first set was a little one sided in Darren’s favour, but Greg found his mojo in the second taking the match to a tie break. The 3 end tie break was a tense affair with very little separating the two players. We had tactical use of “time outs” as well as the third end being killed. Under WBT rules a player may nominate any of their bowls to kill the jack in the third end of the tie break only. If they are successful in getting the jack off the rink, then the bowls would be carried back and replayed. However, they can only kill the end once each.

This mornings’ game was between the two old statesmen of the sport, Andy Thomson and John Price. I was the Marker for this match with Sandra Mcleish as Umpire and Mike Davies as Shot Clock operator. On one end in the second set John opted for a drive shot but took a little too long on the mat and failed to deliver the bowl before the 30 second buzzer sounded. Mike shouted down to me that it was a dead bowl and it was down to me to stop it. It had a fair amount of weight behind it and it did sting a little when I stopped it in its tracks with my foot. It certainly entertained the crowd.

I got one call wrong declaring that John held two shots but on measure it was only one – oh well we are only human. There is added pressure with the shot clock to make a call and we don’t have the luxury of taking our time looking from both sides. It gave “Corky” something to talk about anyway and he does give me a bit of ribbing when I get it wrong, thankfully not very often.

 The match went to the third end of the tie break with both players using all their “time outs”. Eventually Andy came out on top and progresses to the Quarter Final.

Katherine Rednall receives
her Langham Glass Goblet

It was Ladies Finals day today with Rebecca Field from Norfolk and 18 year old Katherine Rednall from Suffolk competing for the World Ladies Matchplay Champion title. There was a capacity crowd in the arena for this final creating a fabulous atmosphere for these two local girls. Katherine dominated the match from start to finish and unfortunately Rebecca could find no reply to her relentless drawing bowls. Katherine is the new World Indoor Ladies Matchplay Champion 2014.

The capacity of the arena is approximately 1000 seats with both stands and the portable rink itself built on top of an 8 rink green. The rink sits within the confines of the underlying green making it slightly shorter than a normal green at just under 36 metres. It is the maximum width with the boundaries set at 5.8 metres wide. There is about ½ metre of rink outside of the boundary lines.

The match after the Ladies final saw World number 1, Paul Foster playing Danny Dennison for a place in the Quarter Final. I was on the shot clock for this one and it was an uneventful game for us officials. Paul won the match in a straight 2 set win over Danny meaning we had an early end to this afternoon’s session.

Tonight we have the last second round match between Alex Marshall and Gary R Smith which promises to be a cracker. The winner will proceed to the quarter final to meet Paul Foster.

Tomorrow is quarter finals day and we are expecting a packed house and some fabulous matches.