143rd Roy-Tho on July 21, 22, 23 pending SSC clearance

The 143rd Battle of the Blues between Royal College and S. Thomas' College, has been confirmed for July 21, 22 and 23, but will be subject to SSC clearance, the traditional venue of the blue riband schools big match encounter, the Sunday Times learns reliably.

An insider said, that as it is, the Joint Organising Committee is waiting for the usual host to be available during the allotted window, as the national team is prioritised. This is because Pakistan is scheduled to come down during the same month for a bilateral series against Sri Lanka, and the venue and dates are yet to be released.

Hence, the match officials are waiting for Colombo's premier Test venue to give the green light.

Sri Lanka's longest running and world’s only second oldest big match between – Royal and S. Thomas’– for the second straight time will be played only in July. This is in stark contrast to its usual period in the month of March.

Last year too, the big match was pushed to the second half of the year, and the match was eventually played in October at the SSC, after being originally slotted to be played at Sooriyawewa behind closed gates. The Sunday Times learns, because the parents of the Royalists were unwilling to send their children for practices due to the now-cancelled public and school exams, the game has been confirmed to be played in July.

However, despite the schools and the public exams getting cancelled, the source still said they should still stick to the penultimate weekend of July. The Thomian camp had been pushing to get done and dusted with it in early April, however, there had been objections from their opposing camp.

The dates were confirmed recently, after last year's Joint Organising Committee was succeeded by this year's taking over the reins.