Saints clash for supremacy at P. Sara Stadium
All roads for the past and present boys of St Joseph’s and St Peter’s will lead to the P. Sara Stadium on March 7 and 8 when the two traditional rivals clash in their annual Battle of the Saints big match.
St.Peter's Team
The clash which is the 80th in the series is fought out for the Fr. Maurice Le Goc trophy and no doubt it’s going to be a closely contested affair due to the fact that the two teams are unbeaten this season.
Of the 79 matches that have been played so far the Josephians lead the series with 12 wins as against to the nine by the Peterites. The Josephians last win was achieved in 2008 under the leadership of Ruwantha Fernandopulle while the Peterites last victory was in 2012 under Shehan Fernando.
According to the form of the two teams the Josephians have played 15 matches with three outright wins against DSS, Maris Stella and St Anthony’s Katugastota while the Peterites from 17 matches secured outright wins against De Mazenod and Isipathana.
St. Joseph’s Team
The two teams will be led by fourth year players with Dylan Fernandopulle spearheading the Josephians and Kavinda de Tissera in charge of the Peterites.
For the Josephians apart from skipper Dylan the other key players will be Sri Lanka youth players Priyamal Perera and Sadeera Samarawickrama who both had a successful U19 World Cup stint in Dubai last month.
Of course the Josephians will bank on their skipper Dylan who is their top scorer of the season and no doubt the return of Priyamal and Sadeera is going to bolster the sides’ batting.
Their only centurion of the side Pathum Madusanka along with Duran de Alwis, Yashan Samarasinghe, Kalpa Ravihara, Trishan Tanuja and Nirvana Abeysekera will be expected to support the batting for them to chalk up a challenging score.
Dylan Fernandopulle Captain
The bowling will be in the hands of the right and left arm spin combination of Aravinda Akurugoda and
Kavinda de Tissera Captain
Malshan Rodrigo who the two top bowlers of the side. Right arm pacies Fabian Fernando and Trishan Tanuja along with Priyamal and Hashindra Perera will need to support if they are to curtail their opponents.
On the other hand the Peterites posses a strong batting line up spearheaded by opener Dineth Thimodya who has cracked two tons, four half tons and also had the honour of reaching the 1000 runs milestone for a season’s score of 1015 runs.
Skipper Kavinda who too has cracked two tons and accumulated over 800 runs along with the other centurion Janith Liyanage who too has scored over 800 runs are definitely going to be threats for the Josephian bowling attack while Hashan Wanasekera and Sanjula Madushan are the others who are expected to make useful contribution to bolster the scoreboard.
The Peterites will banking their bowling attack on two spinners namely left arm spinner Sahan Nanayakkara their top bowler with 88 wickets to his credit and right arm spinner Vinu Mohotty.
Support will be expected from right arm pacie Chemila Obeysekera and spinner Taneesh Weerakoon from preventing the Josephians making a big score.
All in all the supporters of both the sides are going to have two days of entertaining cricket. However for an outcome of the match it will depend on the runs scored in the first inning due to the 60 overs restriction.
The two day encounter will be followed by the limited over clash which is played for the Rev. Fr. Peter Pillai memorial challenge trophy. This is the 40th in the series and in this version too the Josephians are leading with 20 wins as against to the 17 by the Peterites.