Bermuda kept alive their promotion hopes after a confidence-boosting 37-run victory over Malaysia in the Pepsi ICC World Cricket League Division Three in Kuala Lumpur.

In a rain-affected match, the home side fell well short of Bermuda’s total of 257, having been set a revised target of 217 from 43 overs after an 1hr 22min interruption at the Kinrara Academy Oval.

The victory over Malaysia, the newly-promoted country from Division Four who stunned the United States on Friday, did not lift Bermuda off the bottom of the six-team table.

However, they are still just two points from the second promotion spot with games against Singapore, which starts 11.15pm tonight Bermuda time, and Uganda, on Wednesday, to come.

Today’s win owed much to a vastly-improved batting display with Christian Burgess, the 20-year-old wicket-keeper, leading the way with 82 off 88 balls, which included ten fours and a six. Lionel Cann also posted a half-century, scoring 51 from 70 deliveries in the middle order.

Before Cann came to the crease, Dion Stovell and captain Janiero Tucker were both unable to capitalise on good starts, while Terryn Fray and Tre Manders fell cheaply.

But from 98 for four, Burgess and Cann laid the foundations for a competitive total, something Bermuda had failed to do during previous painful defeats to the US and Nepal.

“Young Christian Burgess played a remarkable innings,” interim coach Allan Douglas said of his No 3 batsman. “He’s done everything well on tour with the bat and behind the stumps, so it’s really good to see the youngsters coming through.

“Christian has been batting well and held up an end, which gave us a start. In the middle he then gave us some sort of partnership and down the tailend was Malachi [Jones] and Allan [Douglas Jr], who both showed maturity at the end to play freely, which was what we’ve been trying to do since we came on tour.”

He added: “It was important we got a good score — 250 is always a great total, particularly on these wickets where the ball just sticks in and stays low, so they had to know how to adjust. Once we worked that out and stayed on the front foot, we were good to go.”

After Cann and Burgess’s 80-run partnership had taken the total on to 178, the real fireworks began.

Douglas Jr hammered a rapid-fire 43 from just 14 balls in an entertaining innings, clearing the boundary six times. Jones also got in on the act with 19 from six balls to bring up 250 and it was left to Kamau Leverock and Delray Rawlins, who both scored four not out, to take the final tally up to 257.

The late run-surge must have filled the Bermuda bowlers with glee and they wasted little time making inroads into the Malaysia batting, with Leverock trapping Nasir Shafiq lbw for a golden duck in the second over to put their opponents on the back foot at four for one.

Anwar Rudin, who scored 45, and Ahmed Faiz, who went on to score 87, rebuilt with a 77-run partnership before Stovell, the Bermuda spinner, struck a crucial blow, dismissing Arudin with the batsman looking dangerous and scoring at more than a run-a-ball.

Two quick wickets then fell as Suhan Alagaratnam was run out for 11 and Rawlins sent Suharril Fetri back to the hutch for just two.

From then on Bermuda managed to keep a lid on the Malaysian batsmen, who struggled to match the 5.14 run-rate set by their counterparts.

“We didn’t bowl as well as we could early on,” Douglas said, “but then Delray bowled a fantastic spell and him and Janeiro, they pulled us right back into the game and they were the ones who helped us get to where we needed to.”

Stovell added to his wicket haul, first trapping Aminuddin Ramly lbw for just two before capturing the big wicket of captain Faiz, caught Douglas Jr, who departed just 13 runs short of his century.

He finished with impressive figures of three for 29 off nine overs but he had able accomplices in Tucker, none for 30 off ten overs, and the miserly Rawlins, who in addition to his wicket conceded just 18 runs from his ten overs of left-arm spin.

Jones, the pace bowler, chipped in with a late wicket, bowling Shafiq Sharif for 20 as Malaysia finished on 179 for seven.

In the day’s other games, Nepal bowled Singapore out for just 73 in a 190-run hammering and Uganda beat the US, who fell short of their revised target of 153, by 24 runs in another rain-affected match.

Douglas acknowledged that Bermuda must win their remaining two games to have any chance of promotion.

“We’re just trying to take one game at a time,” he said. “We know we have to beat Singapore and then our last game is against our good friends Uganda so we want to do well against them, too.

“I expect to win against Singapore but we need to keep our heads in the right place so we go out there and win.”