Thr IBF Super World Championships Dubai 2021 took place between 6-15 November at the Dubai International Bowling Centre.
Team England selected four of our most experienced and consistent bowlers to travel to Dubai on behalf of the British Tenpin Bowling Association (BTBA), the National Governing Body for Tenpin Bowling in England, accompanied by Ron Griffin of the BTBA National Council.
About Team England
Dominic Barrett is England’s greatest ever male bowler, with multiple UK domestic titles, 13 EBT (European Bowling Tour) titles, 8 PBA titles(including 2 major titles) and is number one in the all time UK Tenpin Hall of Fame rankings. He bowls professionally in America and has won in all the bowling zones. He is also a former World Bowler of the year in three different years and the captain of Team Europe in the Weber Cup.
Richard Teece bowls on the American PBA tour and has also won multiple UK domestic titles alongside a professional PBA Shark Championship title and a second place in the PBA League, with Team Las Vegas High Rollers. Richard can also boast five wins on the European Bowling Tour, a silver medal for Team England in the 2013 European Champions Cup and of being a valuable ‘rookie’ member of the 2021 European Weber Cup winning team.
Verity Crawley is flying up the UK Tenpin rankings and is the only English woman to win a PWBA title in the USA. A winner for Junior Team England and former BTBA bowler of the year, Verity completed University at the famous Webber University in Florida and continued in the USA to coach and compete. She has just had her best year yet on the professional tour.
Isabel Allen is already a four-time Gold medalist for Team England at Junior level and a Youth World’s Bronze Doubles medalist and has recently finished a successful first year at University in the USA, winning titles with the McKendree Bearcats alongside claiming the 1st ETBF Tenpin Cam Tournament Gold medal for Junior Team England in 2021.
Championships Summary
Please be aware that the poor and unreliable results service has led to long delays and missing information, making summary reporting extremely difficult. We are graateful to Talk Tenpin (http://talktenpin.net) for these summary insights, and would point you to their website for records of all results that they were able to gather and summarise..
Talk Tenpin’s report c/w printouts can be found here..
Doubles
It was a good start for Team England’s Dominic Barrett and Richard Teece and thanks maybe in part to their experience of the baker system and having used it in the recent Weber Cup. Opening with 245 and 226 and moving pairs every two games they added 222 and 279 before the lanes started to transition and get patchy from pair to pair. A 202 and 195 followed by a 277 and 178 and ending with 224 and 203 for 2251 and 8th place and later after the combined scores came in qualifying for the last 32 in 13th place.
The afternoon saw Verity Crawley and Isabel Allen return for doubles and a bright start with 226 and 225 before a slight halt with 172 and back up to 225. A struggle in the middle games to dig out the corner pins and a lack of strings of strikes lead to 170, 183 and 184 before improving with 208. The final pair started with a 175 and ended very well with a 279 for 2047 and good enough for 18th and qualifying inside the top 32.
The Round of 32 saw both England duos in the draw and the men up first. It was a bad start for Dom Barret and Richard Teece as they lost to Malaysia, Italy, Colombia and Lithuania then when everything seemed lost, they sparked into overdrive. 828 scored in the last three games and wins against Bahrain, Korea and Romania but not enough sadly and 6th place in Group 4.
Verity Crawley Leads and Richard Teece in top 5
A good opening day for the England bowlers as Richard Teece shot games of 237,211,232,246 and 266 for 1192 and 7th place in the first squad. Team mate Dom Barrett with 1099 and into 35th. For the women it was Verity Crawley in fine form blasting 229,243,279,248 and 225 to lead the women after two squads with 1224. Isabel Allen also going well after a slower start to place 28th and also well inside the cut for the next round. Five more games to go on Monday.
Singles – Three out of Four Make top 32
On Monday we saw a return to the singles event and England in the first of two groups on the day. A fantastic start for Dom with 243 followed by 179 with Richard on 194 then 248. Dom knew he now needed to start striking and did so for 257,245 and 247 as Richard hit 215,203 and 228. Both at the end just 10 pins apart after 10 games. Dom on 2270 in 18th and Richard with 2280 in 17th at athe end and safely inside the top 32 cut.
It all started well for Isabel Allen and Verity Crawley as they opened with 224 and 236 for Isabel and 247 and 224 for Verity. Sadly for Isabel the scores dried up a little as she struggled with 179 and 154. Verity though was flying still with 237 and 257. The final game saw Isabel find a better look on the lane for 197 and Verity ending with 198. Good and bad news as Verity made the 32 in second place but Isabel missed out by 33 pins in 37th.
Round of 32
Verity was back for the last 32 round in the singles at 5am and hopes were high to see her advance. In group 2 with some very good bowlers, Verity won against Colombia and kept the form going in game two against Singapore. A titanic battle with Shayna Ng saw Verity lose 259 to 248 and a first loss. Another loss in game three to Bahrain in another close battle and then came the fighting spirit we get from our PWBA star. Wins against Finland, The Philippines and Korea and game 7 would be against the USA and needing a win. An early open put Verity on the back foot from the start but fighters fight and Verity was at Danielle McEwan all through the match and even picking up a split when all seemed lost. The American held firm though and kept our star at bay in a 237-225 win. Twelve points total and we await her final position.
Next up we had Richard and Dominic in the Round of 32 at 10am GMT and things did not exactly go to plan. Richard was well beaten in game one when Swede James Blomgren went front 9 and ended with 267 to Richard’s 216. Dom losing the first game to Malaysia by just a pin 215-216. Game two saw Richard win against Colombia but Dom Loosing to Korea 247-280. Game three Richard just lost out to Germany 223-210 and Dom won at last with a 225-1980 win over Norway. Game four both our men lost as Richie went down to Jesper Svensson and Sweden 237-257 but another loss for Dom against Saudi Arabia 185-199. Game 6 and Richard lost with a 232 to Finland’s 243 but Dom got some more points taking out Italy in a 248-211 win. On to the last game and playing for pride saw Richard hit a 268 and win against The Czech Republics 239 but Dom went down by just two pins to Singapore. As points were added Richard had 9 and Dom had 6. Richard ending in 5th in group 1 and Dom 7th in Group 2. Both will return for the Miixed Team event in a couple of days.
Mixed Team
It was Mixed Team time at the Super Worlds and our amazing four were on at 8am GMT this morning. Playing baker format again our four started with 221 and 170 and moving every two games added 186 and 212 but the strings of strikes were not yet coming and lots of corner pins. Back on track though with additional games of 216,224,225,234 and a slight blip with 203. Onto the last game and anything around 220 would see us likely through but anything that could go wrong did so as the spilts dropped the confident form to 171 and 2062 over and a tense wait to see if its enough for the top 16 cut
