IT was double heartbreak for the lawn bowlers on the final day of competition at Victoria Park.
Fairul Izwan Abdul Muin’s hopes of pulling off a big upset in the men’s singles ended with a 15-21 defeat to Northern Ireland’s Gary Kelly in the semi-finals on Saturday.
In the bronze playoff, a deflated Fairul could not get his game going and subsequently lost 11-21 to Scotland’s Iain McLean.
Just hours earlier, Siti Zalina Ahmad and Emma Firyana Saroji’s not only failed to defend their gold but also lost out on the bronze in the pairs.
They lost to New Zealand’s Selina Goddard-Katelyn Inch 15-20 that stretched to 18 ends.
Zalina-Emma had won the gold in the 2018 edition in Gold Coast, Australia.
Emma said although disappointed with the result, they had no complaints about their game strategy.
“We tried our best but it was not our day. All things considered, our game here was better compared to Gold Coast. We were just unlucky,” said Emma.
“We will now focus on next year’s World Bowls Championships in Gold Coast after this.
If Fairul had won the medal, he could have prevented the team from their poorest showing since the New Delhi Games in 2010 where they also returned with one silver and one bronze.
Their silver in Birmingham came from the women’s triples (Nur Ain Nabilah Tarmizi, Syafiqa Haidar Afif Abdul Rahman and Azlina Arshad) while Zalina took bronze in the singles.
To their credit, the bowlers performed better across the board.
In Gold Coast four years ago, Emma and Zalina won the pairs gold but Malaysia failed to contest in the semi-finals of the other seven categories.
This time, however, they entered four semi-finals out of the eight events.
