The Junior Black Sticks clinched the series with a game to spare after they beat Malaysia Juniors 4-2 at the McMillan Hockey Turf in Dunedin yesterday.
The visitors showed a lot of resilience to bounce back from a 8-0 drubbing in game one of the four-game series with a 2-2 draw on Saturday.
And with an ounce more luck the Malaysians could have snaffled a second draw yesterday.
Junior Black Sticks goalie Tom Lysaght was called on to make two crucial saves in the dying stages of the game when his side was leading 3-2.
He used his left foot to boot away a crisp shot which was heading towards towards the back of the net after a defensive clearance went awfully wrong, and moments later he made another good save from a penalty corner.
The Black Sticks eventually broke out of the danger zone and forced a penalty corner with just seconds remaining.
With the last hit of the game, Dwayne Rowsell smacked the ball into the corner of the goal to extend the lead.
An honourable mention to Lysaght but Abir Mukherjee was the star with three goals.
The forward got his side off to the best of possible starts when he slapped in a deflection from a penalty corner with just 4min gone.
He was in the action 15min later when he got on the end of a well executed cross and tapped it in.
Malaysia answered back through Ramadhan just before halftime and Amir Farid tipped in the equaliser after Izad made a lovely run into the circle and forced another save from Lysaght.
With the game seemingly heading for a draw, Isaac Staples trapped a clearance and made a nice run before feeding to Cam Hayde on the left wing.
Hayde snapped in a sharp cross which drew Hatizuddin out of his goal in an attempt to smother the danger.
The deflection fell nicely for Mukherjee, who completed his hat trick, slotting the ball past the goalie, much to the delight of the crowd.
Game four is at 11am at the McMillan Hockey Turf today.
