Narrow squeak

Drawn pairs quarter final this evening, played over eighteen ends. My partner a good Club player. Our opponents another good Club player and one of our top performers. We've worked out a bit of strategy. I'm playing lead, the aim to put them under pressure as their best player steps up to skip. Except they've come up with the same idea.

Playing a medium jack, certainly getting the better of our lead tussle. Two, sometimes three, bowls on the jack. One third into the match and it's 12-1 to us. Bit more even in the middle part, ends seven to twelve. They're starting to score, putting us under pressure. We're keeping down to mostly single bowl wins. Score 16-5.

Their lead then moves the mat up the green and delivers the jack just short of the ditch. The length hasn't changed much, but the line has. The cooling evening air has also changed things. Originally both hands were very wide. Now they've tightened and I'm struggling. Bit too wide, bit too narrow... where has the line gone?

We just can't get the jack back. Still comfortably ahead 16-10 as we go into the sixteenth end, keeping them to ones and twos courtesy of my skip's excellent saving bowls. Then we drop four and it's 16-14. Drop another on the penultimate end, 16-15.

On the last end the shot bowl changes with just about every delivery. We're holding one when their skip makes a delivery that sends him dancing part way up the green in joy, it's that kind of game. He's knocked our shot bowl out to leave them sitting with two. We're looking lost, but my skip manages to cut that down to one with his last bowl. At 16-16 we go into a deciding nineteenth end.

At last I put a bowl right on the jack. Their lead knocks it out. As we switch ends we're still holding shot. Their skip's second shot carries the jack through to the back. Now they're sitting two up behind a wall of protecting bowls. Can it get any more tense?

Looks like mission impossible as my skip delivers his last bowl. Even more so when it appears his delivery is a bit wide. Certainly not short. As the bowl approaches the head it skims off a bowl to the side, cannons into and clears their shot bowl and comes to a rest beside the jack. We've got shot bowl! We've won 17-16!

Such an exciting game of bowls. The spectators certainly enjoyed it. Another semi final. Tally now four semi finals and one quarter final to play, plus Triples Championship won. And this was perfect preparation for the Scone Park Bowling Club Open Pairs Competition on Sunday. Partnering my brother Robert, brother Andrew in one of the other pairs teams. Prize money £300 'plus bottles'. Here's this evening's scorecard.