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by Chris Dhambarage

The traditional rivals St. Joseph's College and St. Peter's College, without a win in the series for more than two decades are determined to produce a result when they clash for the Rev. Fr. Maurice J. Legoc memorial trophy in their 68th annual Saints encounter commencing at the P. Saravanamuttu Stadium today.

This match is sponsored by Dialog GSM for the first time and co-sponsored by ABC Network. Both schools have really felt the need to push for a desperate win and as a result the game should turn out to be a thrilling contest.

For the record St. Joseph's have won 11 games while St. Peter's have registered 7 victories. The last win for St. Joseph's was in 1972 under the captaincy of Rohan Fernando and the last win for St. Peter's was in 1978 under Suraj Abeysekera.

This time the two captains have a major role to play in their attempt to force a victory and make this outing a memorable one. Both teams will stick to 60 overs per side in their respective first innings like in the previous year and play will commence at 9.30 a.m each day. In addition there will be ten attractive prizes for the spectators and five each will be drawn each day after the lunch interval.

The Peterites with three outright victories in the Elephant Lemonade Cup 'A' Division League tournament should have the edge and will be hoping to maintain their dominance in the current season. They have a formidable batting line up and their bowling has variety capable of exploiting any conditions. But still there is doubt whether they could dismiss the Josephians twice within a short period and that too on a good batting track.

The P. Saravanamuttu Stadium is certain to help the stroke makers and both teams would like to make use of these ideal conditions. The Peterites possess a strong batting line and a couple of good all rounders which means that they are capable of scoring well over two hundred and fifty runs. The major threat for them will be of course the two medium pacemen Joel Sabrin and Shiraz Illyas who have been highly successful for the Joes in the current season.

The Peterites too will be depending heavily on their main strike bowler Nadhula Wijeratne who is capable of running through a batting side. In addition he will be backed up by two other experienced bowlers Niroshan Cooray and Samiddha Gallage. Even then they will be up against a decent batting line up which includes Thivanka de S. Wijeratne, Chandana Aravinda, Gihan Perera and Heshan Gunatilleke.

The Josephians have proved their batting capabilities scoring over 300 runs on a couple of occasions and will be hoping to produce another good performance. St. Joseph's boast a rich cricket tradition and their father and son combination has been common to them on the cricket field. This year too they have Radhive Fernando son of Rohan Fernando who led St. Joseph's to victory in 1972.

Opening batsman Shenon Gunawardena is the son of 'Tony' Gunawardena who represented St. Joseph's from 1972 to 1973 and later turned for Tamil Union. In addition all rounder Rishitha Dias is the son of former Sri Lanka test cap Roy Dias who incidentally captained St. Peter's in the year 1972.

The three adjudicators for this Big Match will be Graham Labrooy, Arthur Heikel and Keerthi Gunaratne. The chief guest will be Sri Lanka test player Chaminda Vaas and the guests of honour will be Russel Arnold and Michael Vandort.

The teams:

St. Joseph's College (from): Thivanka de S. Wijeratne (Captain), Joel Sabreen (Vice Captain), Chandana Aravinda, Sasitha Jayasinghe, Gihan Perera, Asanka Ranasinghe, Radhive Fernando, Dion Melder, Shiraz Keyaz, Heshan Gunatilleke, Shenon Goonawardene, Rishitha Dias, Thishan Wijesinghe, Nuwan Hewage, Umesh Rubera, Nirushan John, Sameera Costa.

St. Peter's College (from): Jehan Jayasuriya (Captain), Denver Faux (Vice Captain), Samiddha Gallage, Hans Fernando, Shanaka Wickramasekera, Niroshan Cooray, Aravinda Herath, Sajith Mendis, Lakshman Perera, Shanaka Fernando, Dinesh Panditharatne, Ramesh Subasinghe, Prajeev Jansz, Nadhula de S. Wijeratne, Ruchira Fernando, Gihan de Silva.

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