Short mat bowls

Short mat bowls is an indoor bowling game in which players or teams take turns rolling weighted, biased bowls along a mat toward a small target called the jack, scoring for each bowl nearer to it than the opponent's best. It is a modern variation on lawn bowls. Because it is played on a portable mat of roughly twelve to fourteen metres, it suits village halls, schools and social clubs and is unaffected by weather. A wooden block sits in the middle of the mat, so players use the natural bias of the bowls to curve around it, and a bowl touching the block or falling into the ditch is dead. Its jack is much heavier than in other bowls codes. One account says it began in Wales with two South Africans playing on a strip of carpet in a church hall, and it later spread through Northern Ireland and England. The English Short Mat Bowling Association was formed in 1984 and oversees national championships.