NEW DELHI: Lead. Skip. Jack. Ends. Box measure. The vocabulary of sports fans, even some experts, underwent a test earlier this week. It's not usual to come across the above terms in the realm of sports in India, because the country hardly followed the sport of 'lawn bowls' until three days ago. It was like golfer Aditi Ashok waking India up at 4 am from Japan last August, forcing the country to google par, birdie, eagle, albatross, etc., when she got herself in the reckoning for a medal at the Tokyo Olympics. She narrowly missed a podium-finish. But a quartet of Indian women on the bowling greens of Victoria Park at the 2022 Birmingham Commonwealth Games said to themselves: "Iss baar to karna hai" (we have to do it this time). And they won a historic gold.
India listened to Rupa Rani Tirkey very carefully on live broadcast. She is the 'Skip' of the Indian 'Women's Fours' lawn bowls team, comprising Lovely Choubey (Lead), Pinki (Second) and Nayanmoni Saikia (Third) as the other three members. That's the order in which they bowl. The 'Skip' gets the last turn to bowl.
