Syed Aziz Syed Mubarak led from the front. — Picture by Abdul Razak Ghazali

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 7 — Malaysia’s Under-19 cricket team beat Singapore Under-19’s by six wickets at the Kinrara Oval yesterday.

With the win, Malaysia gain promotion to Division One of next year’s International Cricket Council (ICC) Asia Qualifier. The dates have yet to be decided.

This is the first time Malaysia hosted the ICC Asia Tournament which involved nine other teams — Bahrain, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand and United Arab Emirates.

The top two earned promotion to the top tier.

“With this win we have also qualified for the Under-19 Asia Cup in Sri Lanka from December 8 to 22,” said Malaysian Cricket Association president Mahinda Vallipuram.

“It will be a good measure of our standards and I’m glad for the boys.

“We need to work on certain things but credit to them for putting up a great display of teamwork.

“Special mention to Syed Aziz Syed Mubarak, Zubaidi Zulkiflie and captain Virandeep Singh who had some good knocks this week,” said Mahinda

Virandeep batted at No 3 and was one run short of a half century. His knock four boundaries and a sixer.

He also contributed with the ball, taking two wickets for nine runs from seven overs.

“It was a team effort,” said Virandeep.

“Credit must go to the management. We could not have done it without them.

“Playing in the Asian Cup will be a massive test.”

Besides Malaysia and Singapore, the other teams in the World Cup qualifiers are Afghanistan and Nepal.

The winners will qualify for the World Cup while the second-placed team will qualify for a playoff.