Sri Lanka’s school cricket matches have become much more than sporting events. But if alcohol is removed from the equation, will the culture change, or will people simply find somewhere else to drink?

By Rihaab Mowlana

There are few things quite as distinctly Sri Lankan as a Big Match. For generations, these school cricket encounters have been about far more than what happens on the pitch. They are reunions, social gatherings, expressions of school identity and, increasingly, elaborate spectacles involving music, tents, food, fashion and thousands of spectators. For many adults, alcohol has become part of that experience too, woven so deeply into the social side of Big Match culture that imagining the event without it can feel almost unnatural.

Now, the Education Ministry is attempting to change that. Under Education Ministry Circular No. 2026/10, the promotion and use of alcohol, drugs and other intoxicating substances are prohibited at events organised using a school's name or logo. The Ministry has made it clear that an event conducted using a school's name or logo will be considered a school event and will therefore be subject to the prohibition. The Secretary to the Ministry has also been empowered to immediately prohibit an event found to be violating the directive. Officials say the move follows repeated complaints from parents about students being exposed to alcohol and drugs during major cricket encounters involving leading schools.

The announcement has inevitably raised a larger question about what a Big Match actually is. Is it a school event, and therefore something that should be subject to the same standards as any other school activity? Or has the Big Match evolved into something broader, with adults attending as alumni, parents and spectators and participating in a social occasion that happens to revolve around school cricket? The answer matters because alcohol is not simply an incidental part of some Big Match celebrations. For a section of the crowd, it has become part of the tradition itself.

“Drinking at Big Matches has always been a thing. Banning it does no good. It's all part of the vibe,” one Big Match attendee, who asked to remain anonymous, told Life Plus.

That sentiment is hardly difficult to find. Anyone familiar with Big Match culture knows that drinking has been present around these events for years, and the idea that removing alcohol from the official event will automatically remove it from the day may be optimistic. People can drink before entering a venue, after leaving it or at private gatherings nearby. If the objective is simply to prevent alcohol from being present at a school-associated event, that is one thing. If the objective is to change people's drinking behaviour, however, the problem becomes considerably more complicated.
Sri Lanka already has a framework for controlling alcohol

The new directive also needs to be understood within Sri Lanka's existing alcohol-control framework. The National Authority on Tobacco and Alcohol Act No. 27 of 2006 already regulates the advertising, promotion and sale of alcohol, including restrictions intended to protect young people. Sri Lanka also has policies aimed at keeping educational institutions free from the promotion and use of alcohol and other substances. The new Education Ministry directive therefore does not suddenly make drinking illegal. Instead, it extends responsibility for maintaining an alcohol-free environment to events operating under a school's identity, even when those events may take place outside the school itself.

That distinction is important because the argument is not really about whether adults should be permitted to drink. It is about whether alcohol should be part of an event that is publicly presented as belonging to a school, particularly when schoolchildren are among those attending. The Ministry's position is essentially that the school's name and identity carry responsibilities with them, and that an event using those symbols should not simultaneously provide an environment where intoxicating substances are normalised.

There is evidence to support at least part of that reasoning. Research into alcohol policy has consistently found that reducing the physical availability of alcohol can reduce consumption and alcohol-related harm, particularly when restrictions are properly enforced. Sporting environments provide some of the clearest examples. Research examining alcohol sales at a US college football stadium found substantial reductions in arrests, assaults, ejections and student disciplinary referrals after alcohol sales were eliminated, although the response from spectators was not uniformly positive.

That does not mean every alcohol ban will produce the same result. An important distinction exists between removing alcohol from a venue and removing alcohol from the culture surrounding that venue. If spectators know they cannot buy alcohol inside a stadium but can simply consume it elsewhere before or after the match, the behaviour itself may not disappear. It may merely become less visible.

This is where enforcement becomes crucial. A rule that is consistently applied, understood by organisers and supported by the institutions involved can change the environment in which people behave. A rule that exists largely on paper while everyone knows that alcohol has simply moved to another location is unlikely to transform the underlying culture. The question, therefore, is not simply whether people will obey the directive. It is whether the directive can gradually alter what people consider normal at a Big Match.

What are we teaching children?

There is also a psychological argument that goes beyond policing. Young people learn social behaviour partly by observing what the people around them do, particularly when those behaviours appear to be accepted by a wider group. Research into adolescent alcohol use has repeatedly identified peer influence and perceived social norms as important factors in drinking behaviour. What young people believe their peers and the adults around them consider normal can influence their own attitudes towards alcohol.

That makes the atmosphere around a school Big Match relevant even when the children themselves are not drinking. If students repeatedly see alcohol presented alongside celebration, friendship, adulthood and sporting success, they may absorb the idea that drinking is simply part of what it means to have a good time. The message does not have to be explicit to be powerful.

Another Big Match attendee, who also requested anonymity, expressed precisely that ambivalence. “I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, alcohol at these events has become part and parcel of the experience. On the other hand, we are showing kids that a good time can only be had with alcohol.”

It is perhaps the most difficult point in the debate because it forces adults to look beyond their own enjoyment. The question is not whether a 35-year-old former student can responsibly have a drink while watching a cricket match. The question is what kind of environment thousands of adults are collectively creating around young people, and what those young people understand that environment to represent.

At the same time, simply banning something does not guarantee that people's attitudes towards it will change. Social psychologists have long studied what is known as psychological reactance, the tendency for people to resist when they feel their freedom of choice is being restricted. A heavy-handed prohibition can sometimes make the restricted behaviour feel more attractive precisely because it has become forbidden. That does not mean a ban will cause people to drink more, but it does suggest that enforcement alone cannot change a culture. The reasoning behind the rule, and the way people respond to it, matter too.

Do we actually need alcohol to have a good time?

This is where an interesting comparison can be made with the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Qatar was, of course, a very different environment from Sri Lanka, both culturally and legally, and it would be misleading to describe the tournament as having a total alcohol ban. Alcohol remained available to eligible visitors in designated licensed locations, including the FIFA Fan Festival. However, just before the tournament began, FIFA announced that alcohol sales would not be permitted within the stadium perimeters and would instead be concentrated in designated areas.

The World Cup did not exactly collapse into silence as a result. Stadiums remained packed, supporters sang and danced, rival fans celebrated together, and the tournament produced some of the most extraordinary scenes of collective sporting emotion imaginable. The absence of alcohol from the immediate stadium environment did not somehow make tens of thousands of people forget how to enjoy football.

Qatar cannot be used as proof that alcohol bans automatically work, because the circumstances were completely different and alcohol remained available elsewhere. But it does challenge one assumption that often sits quietly underneath conversations about drinking at sporting events: the idea that alcohol is necessary for a good atmosphere. It isn't. People can create an extraordinary sporting experience through music, rivalry, identity, friendship, anticipation and sheer collective excitement without alcohol being at the centre of it.

Perhaps that is the question Sri Lanka now has to confront. Not whether adults are capable of surviving a Big Match without a drink, but whether alcohol has become so closely associated with celebration that we have stopped questioning its place in the tradition.

Tradition is not always permanent

There will inevitably be resistance to the Ministry's decision because Big Match culture is about tradition, and traditions have emotional weight. For alumni, these events can represent some of their strongest memories of school and friendships that have lasted decades. Changing the atmosphere around them can feel like changing a piece of that identity.

But traditions are not static. The Big Match itself has changed enormously over the years. The crowds have changed, the entertainment has changed, the commercialisation has changed, and social media has transformed the way these events are experienced and displayed. What feels like an essential part of the tradition today may once have been a relatively minor addition.

The same could eventually happen with alcohol.

If the next generation grows up attending Big Matches where alcohol is simply not part of the official environment, the absence may eventually stop feeling like an absence at all. What is currently being experienced as a restriction could become the new normal. That is how cultural change often works. It is not necessarily one dramatic moment in which everyone suddenly changes their minds.

Sometimes it is simply the gradual disappearance of something that people once assumed had to be there.

Of course, that will only happen if the rules are applied consistently. If alcohol disappears from the official event but simply migrates to nearby parties, cars, hotels and private gatherings, the Ministry may succeed in making drinking less visible without actually changing the culture around it. And that distinction is important. The purpose of the directive should not be reduced to whether security guards manage to confiscate a few bottles at the gate. The more meaningful test is what happens over time.

Do school organisers stop treating alcohol as part of the celebration? Do alumni associations adapt? Do adults continue to have a good time without feeling that something is missing? Do students begin to associate Big Matches primarily with cricket, school spirit and friendship rather than drinking? And perhaps most importantly, does the next generation grow up without seeing alcohol as an unofficial requirement for celebration?

The Education Ministry can write the rule. Schools can enforce it. Organisers can remove the alcohol. But no circular can single-handedly change a culture. That requires people to decide that the culture itself can change.

Maybe Big Matches will be less fun without alcohol. Maybe they won't. Perhaps the music will simply get louder, the chants more competitive and the dancing even more questionable.
What happens next could tell us something much bigger than whether Sri Lanka's school cricket matches can go dry.

It could tell us whether a tradition remains meaningful because of what we have always done, or because of the people, memories and experiences that remain when some of those things are taken away.

So, can you ban the alcohol from a Big Match?

Legally, perhaps.

But the more interesting question is whether you can change the idea that the alcohol was ever necessary in the first place.