Big Match: 87th Joe-Pete encounters this December

The Battle of the Saints Big Match between St. Joseph’s and St. Peter's colleges, would only be the second such encounter to be played this year and is scheduled to go ahead on December 13 and 14 at the SSC grounds in Colombo.

The match will be played behind closed doors.

St. Peter's coach Roger Wijesuriya confirmed this would be the only school’s match to host their limited-overs too on December 16 at the same venue, in a pandemic-hit year.  

The decision, to play the 87th edition of the series, had been reached recently.

The trend and the tradition of big matches had been working it off along with the weekend, however, the Joe-Pete encounter will break that going into their matches on weekdays.

The reason is suspected to be due to the unavailability of the grounds and players, since there are at least a half-a-dozen representatives in the Sri Lanka Under-19 squad, three from each schools.

The Sri Lanka U-19s starting their series against the English team on Tuesday (30) means, these six would be in a hectic schedule having to feature for school and national duties.

Their school duty has been sandwiched in between the England tour and the Asia Cup, also slated to be in December.

In another break of the tradition, SSC will see playing host for this match for the first-time in a long time, as it’s the P. Sara Oval, the usual host.

This match, following suit of the Royal-Thomian, was set to stage in May this year, however, COVID-19 ruling and ruining affairs meant the plan was postponed indefinitely.