India won two medals in lawn bowls in the recently concluded Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. Keen to carry forward that success story, the Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC) will organise the seventh edition of the Royal Bowling League (RBL), starting Saturday.
The India women’s fours team (Rupa Rani Tirkey, Nayanmoni Saikia, Pinki and Lovely Choubey) beat South Africa in the final in Birmingham to bag the gold medal and the men’s fours team (Sunil Bahadur, Navneet Singh, Chandan Kumar Singh, and Dinesh Kumar) won silver.
“All the eight players who won medals at the CWG had participated in tournaments organised by RCGC. The sport has huge prospects,” club CEO Devrishi Singhal said on Wednesday. Sanjay Lakhotia, the bowling convenor of RCGC, thinks this is the right time to make people aware about the game.
“This is a game where age is no bar. An 85-year-old can play the game and lock horns with a 15-year-old. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) curator Ashish Bhowmik recently visited our Maidan tent and was happy to see the quality of the greens. We are also planning to have an India Open here,” Lakhotia said.
The Royal Bowling League was played in the IPL format on the club circuit way back in 2015. This year, the meet, played at the RCGC Maidan tent, will have nine teams with 108 players participating.
“The tournament would be played in round robin format followed by knockouts,” said RBL convenor Aditya Sadani. Co-convener of the RBL Agnesh Verma was also present.
