LAWS OF BOWLS

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 8, 4 October 1929, Page 19

LAWS OF BOWLS

DRAFT REVISION

RULES EXAMINED Centres holding allegiance to the Dominion Bowling Association have been supplied with copies of the draft of the proposed new laws of the game, which are proposed to be adopted (subject to amendment) at the next annual meeting of the council of the Dominion Association, to be held in Auckland in July next. It was owing to the locution of the next annual meeting that the laws have been, in the first instance, revised and rearranged by the Auckland centre, and after that by the council and executive of the association. The resolution passed at the last meeting of the executive was as follows: “That, all errors and omissions in the laws of the game which have been ascertained since the present - rules were published be collected during the ensuing year, and be considered at the next annual meeting of the council to .be held at Auckland, in conjunction with the laws of the game adopted by the International Bowling Board and the Australian Bowling Council, with the object of bringing them all into conformity as far as this is possible.” Too Highly Organised. To many bowlers it may seem that the game of bowls in New Zealand is becoming too-highly organised altogether, as it was only in September, 1926, that the laws were -revised, such revision having been made subsequent to the visit of the English team. Still, the object of bringing the laws of the game here into conformity with those adopted at Home and in Australia is certainly desirable. The puzzling thing—in view of the fact that the game came from the Old Country—is how our laws happened to differ from those in adoption in England and Scotland, The assumption is that finer points of law in the game may have been revised from time to time at Home without any reflection of the same here; and this would doubtless happen again in the course- of a few years if a closer relationship is not established between governing bodies throughout the bowling world. It should be stated that the draft bylaws do not provide for any drastic changes in the laws. Although alterations have been made to over half the by-laws of 1926, they are not very momentous, hut deal chiefly with nicer points in unusual circumstances.

It may be remembered that the English players were very fond of following their bowls up the green after delivery. Here this has always been considered an eccentricity to be discouraged, as the action tends to wear the rolling area of the green unnecessarily, and certainly delays the game, as the next player cannot very well get his bowl away until his predecessor returns to the base of operations. It was to check the action of players running up the green after their howls that the council some seven or eight years ago restricted the distance a player could so follow his bowl to 15ft. Now the new by-law proposes to make this distance 20ft. The only argument for encouraging this practice is conformity with the customs of other countries, as it is otherwise entirely reprehensible. The Standard Bowl. . The new by-laws provide for the adoption of a standard bowl which shall bear the stamp of the association, and testing officers shall stamp any bowl which has a bias not less than that of any standard bowl adopted by the association. The standard bowl is defined as a bowl approved by the association for the purpose of testing other bowls. It shall have a major diameter of five and oneeighth inches and weigh not less than 31b. 4oz. Its draw shall be four feet on a standard green and such run shall be determined at the fifteen-feet mark on a testing rail 17ft. long with a gradual rise of four feet over its whole length. One weakness in this provision appears to be rgther obvious. It may be easy to adopt a standard bowl, but it may be a rather difficult one to adopt a standard green, unless the table test is adopted, as what might be considered by the tester a standard green at 10 a.m. may in a couple of hours have undergone changes in its condition that would eliminate its standard requirements. It seems that the whole of the rules as to standard bowls beggars the question of stamped bowls. Every bowler knows that a bow] may be stamped one day and altered the next. Similarly tournament players are fully aware that certain players (whose bowls are properly stamped) are capable of playing suspiciously narrow bowls, and such players get away with it on the argument that the bowls run narrow on account of the manner in which they, are put down. That, however. did not prevent one first-class southern player from being disqualified on the ground that his bowls were not making the standard draw.

Overlapping.

There is some evidence of overlapping in the new by-laws. Law 22 is not really a law of the game, but something that bears upon the conduct of a tournament. It reads as follows: “Any committee conducting or managing the Dominion Association tournament shall make provision before any bowl is played in such tournament that such bowl bears a stamp recognised by the association. The inspection and passing of any bowl by the management under this rule shall not. however,’ relieve a singles player or skip of a team of his responsibility under Rule 90.”

Rule 90 reads: “In all tournaments the player in a single or the skip of a pair or rink will be held responsible for seeing that all bowls played by such a singles player or members of the pair or rink are stamped in accordance with the rules of the association.” In view of this responsibility—the onus on the skip to examine or object to his opponents’ bowls—what useful purpose does Law 22 serve? Indeed, the onus on officials to examine every bowl before a tournament commences is rather overdoing it, when the “right to object” is so soundly provided for in another rule. There is also a further safeguard provided in Raw 92. which gives the umpire the right “to take possession of any bowl or howls if he considers it or they do not comply with the law of the game, and hand same to his testing officer of the association.” ■