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THAI WARRIORS . . . Visiting Thailand bowlers (from left) Darryl Huppatz, Ian Kellion, Ian Mickissock and Brian Walker fine-tune themselves at City Bowling Club yesterday ahead of the Zimbabwe October 5s Bowls Tournament which gets underway tomorrow at the same venue in Harare. — Picture by Tawanda Mudimu

Mbachi Mutukula-Maregere Sports Reporter
THAILAND’S Coco Bowling Club skipper Ian Mickissock is thrilled with taking part in the Zimbabwe October Fives bowls tournament. The tourney gets underway tomorrow at the City Bowling Club in Harare with 16 teams taking part. This will be the first time that the event will have a foreign flavour.
The Thai team will be represented by Ian Kellion, Darryl Huppatz, Brian Walker and Mickissock.

“We are very happy to be in Zimbabwe and we believe there will be a lot of benefits from this tournament,” said Mickissock.

“This will be our first time to play fives because back home we only play trips and pairs at club level and when we have a tournament we include the fours.

“I have never played a fives tournament and this will be the first time for me.

“We are expecting some tough competition, but we are ready, we are not too bad and this will be a good experience, it will be very interesting and useful for us in future.”

He also talked about bowling in Thailand.

“We have four clubs in Thailand — two in Pattaya where we play from and one in Haa Hin — and one in Bangkok and we have about 100 players.

“We do not have a lot of players like Zimbabwe, but when teams come we try and give them tough competition.

“I started playing bowls six years ago, I play for two clubs back home in Thailand, one is called the Coco Bowls Club and the other one is called the Retreat Bowling Club.

“We sometimes have competition and our team performs well. Bowling is a fun sport and everybody there loves it. We play three days a week back in Pattaya,” said Mickissock.

Thai’s fifth player will be Manuel Silva, a Zimbabwe bowler.

“The indoor green that we play from at Coco Bowling Club is a bit shorter, it is about 35 metres and the speed is also almost the same as our indoor.

“The weather is good, so I believe we will enjoy the competition. I went to play in the Tiger Bowls and that is where I met Colin Robertson and the other Zimbabwe players who were very friendly and they said if we wanted to come we were welcome.

“So far we have been here for only a day and it is fantastic,” Mickissock said.

His teammate Walker said it has been 38 years since he left Zimbabwe to settle overseas.

“I used to live in Bulawayo in the 70s and worked at (the then) Rhodesia Railways, Lobel’s Bakery and I then moved to England and then 10 years ago I shifted to Thailand and that is where I am based now.

“It is good to be in Zimbabwe again. It has been 38 years since l left, I have not been bowling for a long time and I am still an amateur in the sport, so I hope we will be able to do well,” said Walker.