Bowls: England hope

ENGLAND'S Roy Cutts, Andy Thomson and John Bell increased their slight chance of reaching today's Woolwich World triples final at Worthing when they inflicted South Africa's first defeat of the championships yesterday.

The 17-11 defeat of Cyril Lahana, Robbie Rayfield and Kevin Campbell, leaves both sides with 11 wins from their 12 matches, but the South Africans have a vastly superior shots aggregate. If they beat Australia tomorrow morning in their concluding section match, they will go forward to the afternoon final.

In the other triples section, Canada missed the opportunity of a place in the final when they lost 15-12 to Argentina, leaving Ireland and Israel to meet in a section decider this morning.

In the pairs, Scotland's Richard Corsie and Alex Marshall will meet Fiji's Pani Matailevu and Caucau Turagabeci for a place in the final.

The Scots, after surrendering their unbeaten record yesterday morning, recovered to beat the defending world champions, Peter Belliss and Rowan Brassey of New Zealand, 22-15, to stay on course for further progress. The other section is between Canada's Ron Jones and Bill Boettger and Ireland's Stevie Adamson and Sammy Allen.