KUALA LUMPUR: The young Malaysian squad rose to the occasion as they stunned home favourites India 3-0 to march into the final of the Squash World Cup in Chennai on Friday.
In the seven-point and best-of-five format, fourth seeds Malaysia knew they had a fighting chance against second seeds India.
And men's No 2 Ong Sai Hung delivered the perfect opener to silence the home crowd as he rallied to beat Abhay Singh 7-4, 5-1, 1-7, 7-1, 7-6 in the first match.
The world No 137 bounced back from 2-1 down to shock the more fancied world No 61 Abhay in 37 minutes.
That inspired his team, and Aira Azman kept up her flawless record in the tournament by overcoming former world No 10 Joshna Chinappa 7-3, 7-3, 5-7, 7-4 in the second match.
The world No 55 certainly made the best of her silky movement on court as she fired away into a rapid 2-0 lead in no time.
The 36-year-old Joshna, who has several Asian and Commonwealth Games medals to her name, showed her experience as she clawed one back by taking the third game 7-5.
But Aira was just too good on the day and the brief setback did not stop her as she stepped it up to seal the win after 21 minutes.
And it would be down to Darren Rahul Pragasam to turn hero for the team as he delivered a stunning 7-5, 2-7, 7-6, 7-5 win over Indian No 1 Saurav Ghosal.
The world No 134, who is struggling on the Professional Squash Association (PSA) Tour, looked inspired as he took the first game 7-5.
World No 19 Saurav, however, came firing back to take the second 7-2.
Darren, however, caught a huge break as he took the third game 7-6 and he didn't look back as he went on to finish off Saurav by taking the fourth game 7-5.
With an unassailable 3-0 lead, the fourth tie between Yee Xin Ying and Tanvi Khanna was withdrawn.
Malaysia now head into the final where they meet top seeds Egypt.
The Egyptian side were simply too strong for third seeds Japan as they powered through with a 4-0 win.
It will be a repeat of the group match that was played on Thursday. Then, Egypt won 3-1 with Aira delivering the sole point for Malaysia.
