Pakistan started their journey of day 3 when they were 91 runs away from Sri Lanka with two of their set batters are in at the middle : Agha Salman and Saud Shakil. They both started exactly where left off. Kept smacking everything loose and avoided good deliveries. They kept scoring at almost 5 runs per over. Both of the batters took on strike bowler Prabath Jayasuriya and rest of the Sri Lankan bowlers went tepid. Saud Shakeel notched up his hundred at the cusp on drinks but his partner Agha Salman got stumps trying to attack Ramesh Mendis.

In the second hour of play, Saud Shakeel and Nauman Ali frustrated Sri Lanka with their rock solid defence. The hosts were absolutely frustrated and they burnt two reviews as well. Nauman Ali consumed 57 deliveries and made 25. Shaheen Shah Afridi too couldn’t hang on much with Saud Shakeel as he was trapped infront of his pads off Vishwa Fernando. And then, the great partnership happened between Naseem Shah and Saud Shakeel. Naseem Shah was solid like a rock while his partner Saud kept hitting and upped the ante. Naseem consumed 78 deliveries only to score 6 but on the other hand Saud Shakeel was accelerating with a rapid pace and the 9th wicket partnership was worth of 94 runs before Naseem was knocked over to Ramesh Mendis.

Shakeel nothced up his double hundred and. Abrar hit some lusty blows at the end before falling to Ramesh Mendis and Pakistan ended their marathon innings at 461 and got a massive lead of 149 runs. Saud Shakeel was not out with his glorious 208* off 361 deliveries.

Sri Lanka had to negotiate only 5 overs before stumps and they faced 3.4 overs and scored 14 runs before bad light enforced umpires to call early stumps. Ar equation after day 3 is, Sri Lanka are 135 runs away from Pakistan's first innings tally and Pakistan are edge ahead of Sri Lanka after day 3.