A lot of criticism has been made against Pakistan captain Babar Azam for not declaring their first innings at the start of the fourth day despite taking a huge lead.
Pakistan played two overs on the morning of the fourth day which also allowed wicketkeeper-batsman Muhammad Rizwan to reach his half-century.
Many attributed the decision of not declaring early the innings to give a chance to Rizwan for reaching his 50.
But these so-called pundits and cricket fans are those who don’t understand cricket.
Former Sri Lankan player Russel Arnold however decoded the mystery behind the late declaration describing the masterstroke behind the decision.
He said it's usually the batting team that decides whether they want roller and sweeping on the pitch.
“If Babar had declared yesterday, then it would've been Sri Lanka to decide whether to put roller and sweeping; so Babar didn't declare yesterday to have this say. And he didn't decide to put roller and sweeping because he wanted the pitch to be broken further. With the roller, the pitch would've become a bit less broken. So they batted two overs for that purpose.”
And the strategy paid off as the pitch offered a lot of assistance to left-hand spinner Nauman Ali who took the first seven Sri Lankan wickets.