The men could not emulate the women, but it still was a remarkable result for the Indian lawn bowls team in the men’s fours competition at the Commonwealth Games as they ended up with the silver medal on Saturday.

While the women’s fours team had won gold earlier, the men’s side lost to Northern Ireland in the summit clash. The final score read 18-5 in favour of Northern Ireland.

The Indian team comprised Sunil Bahadur (lead), Navneet Singh (second), Chandan Kumar Singh (third) and Dinesh Kumar (skip).

Navneet, who aspires to be a commercial pilot but he will be missing the entrance exam of a leading Indian airline on Sunday, was happy with the medal.

“I recently got my commercial pilot license and I have an exam with Air India tomorrow (Sunday), but I can’t reach there. Now that we finally have a medal, it is okay,” the 26-year-old said.

India defeated hosts England by a close 13-12 margin in the semi-final to qualify for the gold medal match.

In the final, India struggled and failed to open their account in the first four ends as their opponents raced to a 7-0 lead. Northern Ireland, whose last CWG gold medal in lawn bowls was in 1998, never allowed the Indians back into the game.