The 83rd Battle of the Saints between St. Peter’s College and St. Joseph’s College will unfold with the usual comradeship at the P. Sara Oval today and tomorrow.
Two days of exciting cricket can be expected from these two Catholic schools. Though St. Peter’s hold a slight edge due to their recent purple-patch leading up to the ‘Big Match’ St. Joseph’s will try hard to turn tables and bring back the Rev.Fr Maurice Legoc trophy to Darley Road after eight years.
Rev.Fr Maurice Legoc was the rector of both the schools and the trophy for the ‘Big’ match is named in his honour. He first served at St. Joseph’s College and then went onto become the first rector at St. Peter’s College.
Robert Fernando led St. Joseph’s College in the first encounter while George Jayaweera led St. Peter’s College.
Of the 82 matches played between these two great cricketing schools St. Joseph’s lead the tally with 12 wins while St. Peter’s has won on 10 occasions with 60 matches ending in draws.St. Joseph’s last won under the leadership of Ruwantha Fernandopulle in 2008 and St. Peter’s last win was under Vinu Mohotti’s captaincy last year.
The highest score in the ‘Battle of the Saints’ series is by St Joseph’s when they made 382 in 1982 under the leadership of Ken Serpanchy while the highest Peterite score was in 1938 under Percy Perera where they accumulated 345 runs.
St Peter’s were bowled out for a paltry score of 36 in 1972 and incidentally that remains as the lowest score in the series and St. Joseph’s lowest score is 56 in 1938. The highest individual score of the series is 204 by Clive Inman of St Peter’s in 1954 and the best bowling figures for an inning is 9 for 41 by Shenal Warnakula of St Joseph’s in 1997.
St Peter’s led by that dashing right hand batsman cum Sri Lanka under 19 cricketer Lakshina Rodrigo had an excellent season recording five outright wins and are one of the few schools to remain unbeaten as well.
Spinners Ameen Miflal and Chathura Obeysekara have brought many strong batting lineups down to their knees accounting for 175 wickets between them this season. If these two start taking wickets, St. Joseph’s will have a difficult time.
The two pillars of the Peterite batting are Rodrigo and Santhush Gunathilaka. The latter has scored over 950 runs and will be hoping to reach the land mark of 1000 runs in the all important ‘Big Match’ in front of a packed house. Rodrigo has scored over 900 runs. They have got their team off to blazing starts many a times and they will be itching to continue the trend this weekend in the most important game of the season.
The Peterites are coached by former Peterite skipper and Sri Lanka player Malinda Warnapura.
Meanwhile St. Joseph’s will be led by left-arm spinner Hareen Cooray and they have registered three outright wins this season.
Nipun Sumanasinghe’s success with the bat will be very vital for the Josephian chances of regaining the trophy after 8 years. He is the top run-scorer for the Darley Road boys with over 1000 runs this season. Fast-bowling all-rounder and junior Sri Lanka player, Jehan Daniel will need to shine as he has a niche for performing at ‘big’ occasions. Cooray has been lethal throughout the season taking over 75 wickets.
Veteran Sri Lanka cricketer cum coach Roger Wijesuriya is the Joes’ head coach.
With the first-innings restricted to 60 overs per side since year 2000, both these teams will have an equal opportunity to produce a noteworthy team performance and win the game. Most of the matches played at P. Sara Oval have produced high scores even though the bowlers had enjoyed the surface.
Taking all these into consideration, the odds are in favour of St. Peters pulling it off.
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