Daniel Salmon and Marc Wyatt celebrate their surprise lawn bowls gold ©Getty Images

Wales' Daniel Salmon and Marc Wyatt held their nerve in a tense finale to upset Scotland's bowls royalty Alex Marshall and Paul Foster and win the men's pairs competition at the Commonwealth Games here today.

Cook Islands also won a historic first Commonwealth Games medal in any sport after beating Malta in the bronze medal match before Australia beat South Africa to the women's bowls crown.

Marshall and Foster were chasing a third title together and a second on Australian greens following victories at Melbourne 2006 and Glasgow 2014.

A win for Marshall would have seem his pass sprinter Allan Wells and, with five, become the most successful Scottish athlete in history.

The favourites started well and let 6-3 before the momentum changed with a run of seven straight points for Welsh.

Scotland then fought-back again in the 18-end contest and a beautiful draw from Marshall levelled the scores at 10-10 with two ends left.

It was Wales who responded best, however, with a strike in the 17th followed be a beautiful bowl against the jack in the decider from Wyatt to clinch a 12-10 win. 

"It's not bad to be honest, all the hard work over the years; it makes up for it all," Salmon, a 22-year-old who won the world youth title here last year, said.

"We have played against them [Marshall and Foster] many times so when you know the opposition you have to blank that out and do what you have to do," Wyatt added.

"And my last bowl today, it could not have been any better."

Aidan Zittersteijn was one half of the history-making Cook Islands team ©Getty Images
Aidan Zittersteijn was one half of the history-making Cook Islands team ©Getty Images

Marshall still has a chance of a historic fifth gold in the fours event.

Taiki Paniani and Aidan Zittersteijn of Cook Islands won 17-11 against Shaun Parnis and Brendan Aquilina of Malta.

Cook Islands,  a self-governing island country in the South Pacific Ocean in free association with New Zealand, had never won a medal at either the Commonwealth or Olympic Games.

They have participated at every edition of the latter since a first appearance at Christchurch 1974, with the sole exception of Brisbane 1982.

The women's fours final which followed also included plenty of twists and turns.

Kelsey Cottrell, Carla Krizanic, Rebecca van Asch and Natasha Scott trailed 9-10 after nine ends but fought back in the second half against their South African opponents.

A crucial three points in end 14 proved key in an 18-16 victory.

It marked Australia's first victory in the event since Auckland 1990 as South Africa failed to successfully defend the title they won four years ago in Glasgow.

Malta beat Canada 17-8 for bronze.