Forward Tengku Ahmad, who injured his little finger during training on Thursday, struck two opportunistic goals in the second-half to help Malaysia take full points from the match.
Poland had earlier shot into the lead in the 20th minute through Dariusz Rachwalski.
National coach Sarjit Singh was happy to get the opening match out of the way, especially with the Malaysians not hitting top form.
S Selvaraju
Malaysia even missed a penalty stroke when S. Kuhan’s attempt was saved by Polish goalkeeper Arkadiusz Matuszak.
“This is not a good game at all for us. We allowed too much space for the opponents to attack and there were too many mistakes in our half. We cannot play like this in the coming matches. This is a lucky win considering the way we played,” Sarjit said.
“But it is good to have started off on a winning note and we must ensure that we do not drop points in our coming matches. The target is to make the final and we need to win at least four of the matches to achieve that.
“Overall, we need to improve on certain aspects of our game. We will be ready for the Italians tomorrow.”
In the other two matches yesterday, world champions Germany hammered Italy 8-0 while hosts Japan edged Switzerland 2-1.
Poland and Malaysia were evenly matched in the first-half.
Poland, the world No. 21, took the lead in the 20th minute when Rachwalski deflected the ball high into the Malaysian net after receiving a pass from outside the circle.
Malaysia came back stronger after the break and needed just three minutes to find the equaliser through a Tengku Ahmad field attempt.
The Malaysians continued to attack and earned a penalty stroke in the 49th minute. But Matuszak used his right foot to keep out veteran Kuhan’s flick.
Malaysia piled on the pressure and, in the 57th minute, earned their third penalty corner, which resulted in the winner when Kuhan’s indirect attempt was deflected by Tengku Ahmad past Matuszak.
The Poles tried hard to get back into the game and even had two penalty corner attempts but both came to nought.
Malaysia had another chance in the 69th minute when S. Selvaraju and Azlan Misron broke away. Selvaraju’s attempt beat the goalkeeper but defender Miroslaw Juszczak managed to clear the ball on the line.
Earlier, two-time world champions Germany led 4-0 at half-time en route to an 8-0 rout of Italy.
Penalty corner specialist Christopher Zeller was the hero for the Germans, scoring a hat-trick from set-piece moves in the 23rd, 25th and 37th minutes.
Sebastian Draguhn (11th, 30th) and Mattias Witthaus (40th, 55th) chipped in with two goals each while Benjamin Wess scored the last, thanks to a deflection, in the 68th minute.
In another match, Japan also had to claw back from a goal down to snatch a 2-1 win over Switzerland.
The Swiss went ahead in the 40th minute through Michael Kotter before Japan hit back through Kenichi Katayama (43rd) and skipper Takahiko Yamabori (61st).
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