COUNTY bowls legend Alex ‘Tattie’ Marshall has missed out on victory at the World Indoor Pairs Championships.

Marshall partnered American Neil Furman after regular partner Paul Foster, himself a former East Lothian player, had to return home following a family bereavement.

The pair bowed out at the quarter-final stage, beaten by the English pairing of Mark Dawes and Jamie Chestney in the quarter-finals at Potters Leisure Resort in Norfolk.

The English duo put on a great display of bowling in the opening set and won it 8-1.

Marshall and his American partner, who was the highest-ranked World Bowls Tour player available to partner Marshall rallied into the second set and, going into the final end, they trailed by one shot but needed a count of two to take the match into a tiebreak.

It was not to be as the Dawes/Chestney partnership played a great last end and progressed to the semi-final.

Tranent resident Marshall turned his attention to the singles on Wednesday when the record six-times champion lined up against qualifier Andrew Kelly of New Zealand in the first round.

Before that, Marshall’s Garden County clubmate John McCrorie competed on Tuesday when he faced a first round-clash against fellow Scot and number five seed David Gourlay.

McCrorie was unable to overcome the vastly-experienced Gourlay as he bowed out in straight sets (3-8, 2-10).

Gourlay was far from fluent throughout but McCrorie, who revealed he had been receiving tips from Marshall, was not able to apply the pressure when needed and, rather than celebrate the scalp of one of the pre-tournament favourites, he will now be heading home dreaming of what might have been.

McCrorie kept himself within touching distance in the first half of the match without ever really threatening to take the initiative, although he least gave himself a sniff of halving the first set, but he never got close to claiming the four-shot haul he needed on the final end.

Landing an early blow in the second set, McCrorie failed to capitalise and a 5-1 deficit soon became 8-2 with three ends to play.

Holding two and with hope of prolonging the match, McCrorie then saw Gourlay play a running bowl which left his opponent three up and, being unable to bowl in with his final delivery, he saw his tournament come to a premature end with two ends left to play.

Marshall is also in World Mixed Pairs action tomorrow evening (Friday) when he teams up with fellow Scot Julie Forrest and they tackle the pairing of Greg Harlow and Katherine Rednall in the opening round at about 7.30pm. The action can be watched on the World Bowls Tour YouTube channel.