KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian men's hockey team moved to 10th in the world rankings yesterday after beating Wales 3-1 in their second Test at the Reading Hockey Club.
Malaysia now have 1,427.181 points, and are just above Canada who have 1422.120 points.
For the record, Canada played at the Tokyo Olympics, and ended as the last team at No 12. Malaysia last played at the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
Faizal Saari scored two goals in the 17th and 18th minutes. The first was from a penalty corner, and immediately upon restart, he scored a field goal.
Wales made an attempt to claw back into the match with a 58th minute attempt, but Razie Rahim closed the Test with a 59th minute penalty corner goal.
Malaysia will next play France in two international friendlies, but both matches do not carry any ranking points.
"It was not an easy match as we had to travel for three hours to the venue, and then played in the cold and rain, but in the end, it was a sweet victory for the players as well as Malaysian fans.
"One of the reasons we came for the Britain tour is to get the experience of playing under pressure, and coming out winners. It was a victory for the players' perseverance as well as the team's build-up process," said national coach Arul Selvaraj.
It was also a sweet debut for Shafiq Hassan, who picked up his first international cap against Wales.
Meanwhile, even though the National Under-21 team beat England 5-4 yesterday, coach Wallace Tan is still looking for more from his boys, as the slide happened after they took a 5-0 lead.
"Even though we won, there are still many improvements that I would like to see from this set of players soon.
"We have two more matches, and I hope they use them to improve the weak areas on this tour itself," said Wallace.
Amirul Haniff Mamat (18th, 33rd), Noor Firdaus Rosdi (24th), Akhimullah Anuar Esook (27th) and Muhibuddin Moharam (29th) scored for Malaysia.
England started their four-goal figh-back with a 38th minute goal, but Malaysia held on to claim a slim victory.
