In the Asia match of the day – Malaysia took on Bahrain at the Indian Association with the Bahrainis' coming off victorious in a match that Malaysia had been expected to win as the in-form side of the event.

Having won the toss – the Malaysian batting struggled against Rizwan Baig's fast bowling, with four of the Malaysians departing at his expense, including key middle-order batsman Suresh Navaratnam and top order stroke-maker Anwar Arudin, the latter having completed his half-century.

Former Malaysian captain Suhan Alagaratnam corner-stoned the innings with 54 runs while Hiran Ralalage made a cameo with the bat scoring 34 however the Malaysians final total of 195 was slightly too low on the smallest of the grounds being used for the event.

In reply, Bahrain looked set for disaster after the team were flailing with five runs on the board and one wicket down before lunch, however Yaser Sadeq's men had other things in mind.

Led by the evergreen Adil Hanif in the afternoon heat, the 33-year-old made a splendid 65 runs striking five boundaries and two sixes in the process. Rizwan and Shahzad Ahmed assisted on the run-making and despite a late flurry of wickets, the team managed to steer itself to its second win, with two wickets in hand.

Unfortunately the side's run-rate was not superior to Cayman Islands and thus the side were relegated into Division 6, a disappointment for Yaser.

"We are disappointed, today we played the cricket we should have played all week and we knew we could win this match. We had hoped for promotion to help us to improve even further as a side and help us to push the youth through this team since it's now in need of some fresh faces.

"We'll go back to Bahrain, regroup and hopefully we can improve and come back stronger next time we compete and regain promotion."

Meanwhile, Navaratanam was disappointed with the loss but focused on the positives: "We would have liked to make it a clean sweep with the league matches but it was not to be today.

"We've won promotion out of this division which is what we ultimately wanted to do. We're excited to be facing up to sides like Nepal, Tanzania, Denmark and USA – some of whom we haven't played at all or in quite some time.

"Tomorrow's game is going to be a big one no matter what for us – we may play Singapore five or six times a year, but we want to come out the winners of this event and walk away with the trophy."