What kind of sport is skittles?

Have you ever wonder where ten-pin bowling, duckpin bowling, candlepin bowling and five-pin bowling descended, this sport will give you the answer. Skittles is an indoor pub game which has shared ancestry with the outdoor lawn game known as bowls also distantly related to billiard sports and an inspiration for the ball-pin-alley.

Skittles is usually played indoors using one or more heavy balls, spherical in shape and sometimes oblate, on a bowling alley. In this game, there would commonly be nine skittles (small bowling pins). The main objective of the game is basically for the player to hit a specific one, or all of the skittles, depending on the game rules, since different regions have different rules (and different pins).

Also known as Old English Skittles, the Greater London version uses nine pins (made of wood) and a thick circular disc known as a 'cheese'. The cheese is thrown at the pins using a swinging motion whilst stepping forward.

The skittles are about 15 cm (5.9 inches) high, circular at the bottom but widening higher up then tapering to a shallow point, which leaves them slightly top heavy. Traditionally the skittles and the cheeses are made of English boxwood. The cheeses measure about 10 cm (3.93 inches) across, and 4 cm (1.6 inches) high, one and a half inches high.