The Rule about Playing Out of Turn at Lawn Bowls

Valverde Algarve Portugal 2019 Winter

The most common irregularity during play that I have so far witnessed in my seven years of lawn bowling is playing out of turn which is dealt with in Section 29.1 of the Laws of the Sport of Bowls Crystal Mark Third Edition.

Since it appears to be the most common such irregularity it is worthwhile knowing the exact rule which comprises several alternative choices offered to the skip who has been offended against.

Rule 29.1 reads:

29.1 Playing out of Turn

29.1.1 If a player plays out of turn, the opposing skip can stop the bowl and return it to the player to play it in the proper order.

29.1.2 If the bowl has come to rest and has not disturbed the head, the opposing skip must choose whether to:

29.1.2.1 Leave the head as it is and have your team play two bowls one after the other to get back to the proper order of play; or

29.1.2.2 Return the bowl and get back to the previous order of play.

29.1.3 If the bowl has disturbed the head, the opposing skip must choose whether to:

29.1.3.1 leave the disturbed head as it is and have their team play two bowls one after the other to get back to the proper order of play.

29.1.3.2 replace the head in its former position, return the bowl, and go back to the proper order of play.

29.1.3.3 declare the end dead.

First of all, I do not advise you ever to stop an opposing player’s bowl (as described in 29.1.1), even when you think it has been played out of turn because if you are wrong and the bowl is not out of turn, the penalty to your side is severe. The rule that applies, in this case, is 37.1.1.3.

Bowl displacement by another player

37.1.1.3 If the bowl is displaced by an opponent and it has not disturbed the head after it is displaced (this is the situation where the opposing skip would stop a bowl before it reached the head thinking it was out of turn: my italicized interjection) the skip of the team that played the bowl must choose whether to:

37.1.1.3.1. have the bowl replayed

37.1.1.3.2. place the bowl where the skip believes it would have come to rest; or

37.1.1.3.3 leave the bowl where it came to rest.

The second of the opposing skip’s choices is the most potentially damaging in this situation because the opposing skip has it in his power to place that bowl which you stopped anywhere and you cannot object.

Note that if you, as skip, see your own teammate bowl out of turn, you must not stop the bowl yourself because even though that bowl has been played out of turn, you will have interfered with your own team’s bowl and can have that bowl declared dead because Rule 37.1.1.1 applies.

37.1.1.1 If the bowl is displaced by a member of the team that delivered the bowl and it has not disturbed the head after it is displaced (such as when you stop the bowl before it reaches the head; my italicized interjection), the opposing skip must declare the bowl dead.

This rule seems intuitively unfair. You are preventing a bowl that should never have been delivered in the first place from interfering with the match and yet you are penalized. I have wondered why this is so. I can imagine one scenario where without this rule misplaying could yield an advantage. There are probably some others. Suppose, for example, your side has bowled a legitimate bowl that has displaced the jack to the edge of the rink. You would like to know the weight and direction for your next shot which will have to be played over an unfamiliar part of the rink. Suppose you immediately, and unsportingly, took another bowl and delivered it along a possible line.  Because of this breach of rules, you get a good clue how to play your next shot and, so long as your skip stops your bowl before it disturbs the head, you would suffer no penalty if all that happened was that that bowl was returned to you and play continued in the proper order.

To summarize, if your side bowls out of turn, for sure don't stop the bowl yourself, call on your opposing skip to stop that bowl. He or she shouldn’t comply (it would be better to get the choice of penalty against you), but (s)he might.

What about that most common situation where a bowler plays out of turn? This happens when one lead delivers the jack out of bounds and the opposite lead delivers a good jack but then, by mistake, delivers the first bowl. As before, if it is your lead who plays out of turn, do not stop the bowl. Call on your opposing skip to stop it. If he or she does, it is returned without penalty and the correct order of play follows. If neither skip touches the bowl, the choices are as stated in 29.1.2.1 or 29.1.2.2.

Since in this most common instance it is the first bowl delivered, it can only disturb the head by touching and moving the jack. If the jack is moved 29.1.3.1, 29.1.3.2, or 29.1.3.3 apply. In this situation, 29.1.3.3 would never be chosen since it is equivalent to starting over. 

Note: this is not a ‘dead end’ in the sense that the end was ‘burnt’ (the jack has not been driven out of bounds), so the jack is not re-spotted at the forward T (centered 2 meters from the front ditch).  

An Unlawful Delivery at Lawn Bowls

At one of the places where I am visiting in Portugal, one of the bowlers uses, very effectively, a delivery technique which I had never seen before, at any level of lawn bowling, from the club level to the world championships; neither indoor nor outdoor. He starts standing, feet together, one stride behind the mat. Then, in one motion, he steps forward onto the mat, sets his foot on the mat and as he takes a second step forward with the normal advancing foot he releases his bowl. As he releases his bowl one of his feet is either fully or partially on or over the mat.

I was curious why I had never seen this done before. On further investigating I found the reason. Every such delivery is a foot fault! The pertinent law of the sport of bowls reads:

7.1          Before delivery a player must be standing on the mat with all or at least part of one foot on the mat.[my bold italics] At the moment they deliver the jack or a bowl, the player must have all or at least part of one foot on or above the mat.

Now what should I do? This gentleman has been bowling this way for years. I presume no one has ever called him for a foot fault all this time. He has probably never played in an officiated tournament. Should I speak to him about it off the green?

What would you do?  

Lawn Bowls Rules:When a Bowl Falls

I know Laws of the Sport of Bowls Crystal Mark Third Edition pretty well, but a situation occurred in a club roll-up the other night when I wasn’t so sure.

I got it right on the rink but I rushed home afterwards, got a beer from the fridge, and started thumbing through my reprint of the rules. Here is the situation:

 the end is finished; the vices go to measure but before they can do anything one of the earliest bowls delivered, which is close to the jack, falls. It becomes the closest bowl although it appears that an opposition bowl probably would have been shot if this first bowl had not fallen.

I advised that the now fallen bowl, which was now closest to the jack, was shot.

I knew that the rules stated that any member of either team could have placed a support against the tilting bowl before measuring began, but no one had done so. I knew that a skip could request that everyone wait 30 seconds after the final bowl of the end to see whether a bowl would fall before wedging it. However these rules clearly did not apply in this case.

My subsequent research shows that the relevant rule is 23.6.3

“[I]f a bowl falls of its own accord, it must be left in its new position while deciding the number of shots scored continues, and all the shots agreed before the bowl fell will count;”

Since no shots had been agreed before the bowl fell, my interpretation is that the head is counted with the fallen bowl in its new position.

Interestingly, since we won the game by one point, this decision eventually determined the winner on the night.

A Proposed Improvement in the Rules for Bowls Sets Play

Contested to the End

Increasingly, lawn bowls at the professional indoor and even club levels has moved to sets play. Two sets of anywhere between 9 and 11 ends are played. If one team wins both or wins one and ties the other, that team wins the match. If each team wins one of the two sets, there is a 3 end tie-breaker. This is scored as best bowl wins the end. The side that wins two of these extra ends wins the match.

What seems to me to be unfair is that the choice of which side either has possession of the mat or the last bowl in the first and third ends is determined by a coin toss. I feel it would be an improvement if this advantage went to the side that had the best overall score when the two sets are considered together. For example, if side A wins the first set 11-2 and losses the second set to side B 10-11. The overall score is 21-13 in A’s favor and it should receive the choice in ends 1 and 3. If the overall score is also tied then a coin toss would be appropriate.

This modification of the rules would have another advantage. A team that is seriously behind in the first set would need to continue to play hard to narrow the gap they lose by to try to preserve an increased chance if the match ended up in a tie-break. As the rules now stand, a team losing the first set badly can give up the first set before it is actually over and just start preparing for the second set.

Ignorance of this Law of Bowls can cost you the Match

Often in in-club tournaments a match outcome hinges upon control of the mat; one team does better on short ends, the other on long ones. Yet, in such in-club games, the leads may both be very new bowlers. The lead with the mat may, for example, deliver the jack too short or too wide and the other lead may then put the jack out or in the forward ditch. In this situation, the rule is that the jack is centered two meters from the forward ditch and the origin lead delivers the first bowl. What is often not remembered is that in this situation, the original lead bowler may move the mat forward to wherever his/her skip wants it to be placed before that first bowl is rolled. This is crucial because the original lead’s team may be the one needing a short jack and, if they don’t know the rule, that team will be faced with a very long one!

To quote chapter and verse, in Laws of the Sport of Bowls, Crystal Mark, Third Edition, rule 10.3 states, “If the jack is delivered improperly once by each player in any end, it must not be delivered again in that end. Instead, it must be centered with the nearest point of the jack to the mat line being two meters from the front ditch, and the mat must be placed as described in 6.1.1 by the first player to play”.
 Rule 6.1.1 in turn states, “Before the start of play in each end, the player to play first must place the center line of the mat lengthwise along the center line of the rink, with the mat line at least two meters from the rear ditch and at least 25 [23 in Canada] meters from the front ditch”.
In other words, the team that will play first regains control of the jack length because they can adjust the position of the mat before bowling the first bowl!