The new partnership of top 16 ranked players - Jason Greenslade – now representing Guernsey, and Elgin’s Mike Stepney forged a good ‘working’ relationship as they joined forced and secured the necessary win in their opening match of the @Imagine Cruising World Indoor Bowls Pairs Championships to book a spot in Monday’s (9th January) quarter finals.
The duo, who originally played alongside Les Gillett and Simon Skelton respectively, were chasing all the way in the opening set, with their Canadian opponents Dylan Jacobs and Kody Olthof giving a good account of themselves to win 7-5.
This incidentally was the Canadian’s second match of these championships after overcoming English qualifiers and favourites Louis Ridout and Sam Tolchard in straight sets on the opening day.
But a ‘team talk’ after the first set saw a role reversal, with Stepney reverting to lead and Greenslade taking over as skip – and that ploy seemed to work as they quickly got into their stride and won the second set 11-4 and kept the momentum going in the tie break to win the match 2-0.
However, it has to be said Olthof can consider himself unfortunate that he didn’t at least take the match to the deciding end. With his last bowl of the second end of the tie break, he punched the jack through the head, but to his disappointment his own bowl ran out of contention.
Greenslade and Stepney now await the winner of tomorrow’s match between MBE’s Paul Foster and Alex Marshall against ‘scratch’ pairing Neil Furman and Sean Mawdsley.
Match Result – Jason Greenslade (Guernsey) & Mike Stepney (Scot) bt Dylan Jacobs & Kody Olthof (Canada/Q) 5-7, 11-4, 2-0;
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