KUALA LUMPUR: World No 11 Malaysia lost 3-0 to World No 1 Australia in the first of their four Test hockey series in Perth today.
Coach Arul Selvaraj's men were stunned as early as the first minute by a field goal from the Australians. And the feeling then was that Malaysia will be hit by at least half a dozen goals by the end of the match.
However, the Malaysians settled down and put up a strong resistance. The Kookaburras soon found their field attempts thwarted while goalkeeper Hafizuddin Othman superbly parried some shots. In the end, the hosts could only score two more through penalty corners.
Tom Wickham struck in the first minute for Australia while teammates Blake Govers (19th) and Jeremy Hayward (30th) sounded the board from penalty corner attempts.
"The first minute goal shocked us, but my players got back on their feet fast to stop Australia from scoring more field goals," said Arul.
"Our goalkeeper Hafizuddin played a good game to keep the score low.
"We will find out what happened during the penalty corners to improve. We will watch match videos and look at how the first runner attempted his saves and that will give us a better understanding in the second Test (tomorrow, 4pm Malaysian time).
"Even though we lost in 60 minutes, it was a good feeling to win the shootout 4-3 against the world number one," said Arul.
After the match, Australia and Malaysia had a friendly shootout.
And Arul's team claimed the bragging rights.