COMPOSITION BOWL BREAKS IN TWO

Southland Times, Issue 24027, 18 January 1940, Page 5

COMPOSITION BOWL BREAKS IN TWO

It did not happen at the. centennial bowling tournament in Wellington, but a few days before in another part of the North Island. A player drove at the shot bowl, a toucher on the jack, and hit it so hard that it broke down the centre, one half going into the ditch and the other half careering sideways over two or three rinks.

Apparently, there is no Igw governing the incident, and no one at that touxTiament could remember a similar thing happening before. There will, doubtless, be an official ruling, fox’, if one composition bowl can break into halves, the ready assumption is that another of the same make may, sooner or later, follow suit—if hit hard enough. To settle any temporary argument, the players in this case invoked law 77, which reads: “If the jack be broken in play, the end shall be replayed.” As this is only anothei’ way of saying that the jack shall be dead, the players agreed to treat the broken bowl as dead, like a jack; the owner refused to claim that the half in the ditch should be accounted a toucher, and therefore alive.

It may seem remarkable to some that there are still possible incidents for which provision is not made in the revision of bowling laws, started in 1936, and finished last year after most exhaustive study and analyses. But, of course, the spirit of any game is greater than all the laws put together, states The Christchurch Star-Sun. Common sense and fair play can surely settle amicably the hundred and one points not provided for.