Malaysians enjoying the culture shock

THE Malaysians are here and they are cold but happy. Competing at the Sports Guernsey WIBC Under-25 Indoor Championships, the furthest players to make it to the Guernsey Indoor Bowls Stadium were the two men and three women representing south-east Asian country.

With their fleeces and hand warmers and one them sporting a rather fetching woolly hat, they could have been mistaken for a mountaineering group in Snowdonia rather than an international sport team.

But when they are not wrapped up warm, they are producing the goods on the bowling rink as Lianna Bichard can testify when Guernsey's top young female bowler lost to Intan Kamarauzaman on the opening day.

According to their manager, Rustam Affandi Maktar, they are enjoying themselves but wished it could be slightly warmer.

'We are having a good time,' said the 41-year-old.

'The tournament is well done. The organisation and the facilities are good.

'But at this time of year it is a bit cold for us. In Kuala Lumpur where the weather is hot and humid and the temperature is between 27 to 35 but here it is 13 to 15 and at night it is even colder.'

Another logistical issue that the Muslim Maktar and his team have had to overcome was Ramadan that requires them to undergo 30 days of passing any water or food through their lips during the hours of daylight.

'Before our players came over, they were at a central training programme that was in Ramadan so we were prepared,' said Maktar.

'We have brought our own food because of our religious beliefs. We celebrated the passing of Ramadan on 2 November with a feast.'

Bowls in Malaysia was born in 1992 when the government pushed the sport in preparation for the 1998 Kuala Lumpur Commonwealth Games. Malaysia is no doubt leading the way in the sport in Asia and they are the top nation followed by the Philippines, India, Thailand and Singapore.

In a country that is dominated by football and badminton, their lawn bowls federation now boasts more than 2,000 playing members and has five outdoor greens with floodlights that due to the weather are used day and night.

As a sport that is in its relative infancy, Maktar points out that the sport in his country is dominated by younger players with not many senior ones at all.

The Malaysian federation are also targeting juniors with a national under-12 coaching scheme.

Although at the moment there are no indoor facilities but this is being rectified as a purpose built indoor stadium is currently being constructed in Kuala Lumpur and will be completed next year.

A lack of practice on the carpet is not a problem for the team according to Maktar that had success at last year's world under-25s in Jersey.

'It's okay. The tournament started on 2 November and we arrived on 30 October so we prepared earlier,' said the civil engineer.

'Last year we managed okay, we won two bronze medals in the men's.'