Before this month, the Cambodia men's team had never played an international match. They now find themselves as South East Asian Games 50-over gold medalists after a surprise win over an experienced Malaysian side, who were the defending champions.

The event features 50-over, T20, T10 and Sixes tournaments for both men's and women's teams, though only four teams opted to enter the men's 50-over tournament.

Cambodia - in their first ever men's international - beat Indonesia by 129 runs in the first semi-final, with Malaysia easily beating Thailand in the second semi-final, chasing their total of 78 in just 10.2 overs to win by 7 wickets.

Thailand then beat Indonesia by 3 wickets in Saturday's bronze medal match, setting the stage for Sunday's final between the hosts and Malaysia at the AZ Group Cricket Oval in Phnom Penh.

Cambodia won the toss and chose to bat first, with their opening pair of Ram Raushan Sharan and Lakshit Gupta putting on 177 in 27 overs before the latter fell for 56. Sharan batted on and was the third man out having scored 111 from 86 balls.

Contributions further down the order came from captain Luqman Butt - who played first-class cricket in Pakistan before emigrating to Cambodia - with 44 and 39 from Etienne Beukes. A blistering 28 from only nine balls by number nine Sharwan Godara helped them reach an excellent total of 334-7 from their 50 overs.

Malaysia started their run chase well with Muhammad Amir and Ahmad Faiz making up for the early loss of Virandeep Singh with a 132 run second wicket partnership which ended when Amir was out for 69 in the 24th over. Faiz reached 78 before he was the fourth man out.

Unlike Cambodia's innings, there were no other scores of note for Malaysia as the last six wickets went for just 21 runs. Luqman Butt helped himself to figures of 5-39 as Malaysia were bowled out for 245, losing by 89 runs and giving Cambodia an unexpected gold medal.

The next cricket medal to be awarded at the games will be in the women's sixes tournament which takes place in its entirity tomorrow.