Orang Asli boys chase cricket dreams, from jungle to city

The field is simply a patch of grass beside wooden houses raised on stilts, where children gather after school and turn a stretch of open ground into a cricket pitch.

This is where the young players of Kemarian Cricket first learned the game.

The boys attend SK RPS Kemar, a school tucked deep in the forests near Gerik. For most of them, cricket was once just another unfamiliar sport they saw on television or heard about in passing.

That changed when their teacher, Hakimul Adry, decided to introduce the game to them.

Hakimul, 26, knew little about cricket and had only played it in his teens. Yet he has since sparked a love for the game among his fellow teachers and the kampung community.

He teaches at SK RPS Kemar, where he has spent the past three years building a team from scratch among pupils who had never held a cricket bat before.

With limited facilities and equipment, Hakimul often dips into his own pocket to keep the team going, using part of his salary to buy balls, arrange transport and keep training sessions alive.

Hakimul is turning a small school field into a starting point for bigger dreams.

His under-12 boys have already travelled nearly 200km to compete in a district tournament in Ipoh, where they stunned many observers with their courage and enthusiasm.

Now their journey is set to reach an even bigger stage.

In May, a group of them will travel to Kuala Lumpur for a special event featuring the legendary players of the Sri Lanka 1996 World Cup winning team, who will hold a youth coaching clinic and play an exhibition match.

For boys who began their cricket journey on a village clearing, the invitation feels almost unreal.

Where the journey began

Hakimul still remembers the early days when the boys first picked up a bat.

“The morning mist still faithfully embraces the small field at the end of the school,” he said.

“That is where everything began.”

The school sits among green hills and dusty red dirt roads. Each afternoon, the boys gather on the open space near their homes, and practise batting, bowling and fielding with whatever space they have.

Laughter mixes with determination.

“I always tell them, winning is a bonus,” Hakimul said. “The important thing is that you dare to dream.”

The dream took a bold step forward last month when the team travelled to Ipoh to compete in the Perak inter-district Under-12 tournament.

The event, sanctioned by the Perak Cricket Association, saw 11 district teams and 165 young cricketers competing for the Mahinder Singh–Koo Kim Kuang Trophy.

For the boys from Kemar, simply reaching the tournament required an extraordinary journey.

They first boarded a small boat to cross a stretch of water deep in the interior.

Waves rocked the vessel as the boys held onto their life jackets while the wind whipped across the lake.

Some prayed quietly. But no one turned back.

From there, they continued their trip by road, riding for hours toward the city.

For many of them, it was the first time they had travelled so far from home.

Learning to compete

The boys arrived in Ipoh knowing they would face teams with more experience, better facilities and years of structured training.

Yet once the matches began, fear quickly gave way to courage.

Kemarian Cricket won two of their three group games, beating Bagan Datuk and Kinta Selatan before reaching the semi-finals.

With each match, the boys grew more confident.

“They did everything they learned in training,” Hakimul said. “And their confidence kept growing with every game.”

One of the most memorable moments came during the third-place playoff.

Although the boys eventually finished fourth overall, their spirited display excited the crowd and earned them admiration from players and spectators alike.

Individually, several players also made their mark.

M Damizal finished third among the tournament’s top run-scorers with 53 runs while Long Sahril emerged as the second-best bowler with nine wickets.

Zikry Wafiy led the fielding charts with three catches. Iszuwan Mazuan ranked second for run-outs with three.

For Hakimul, the moment carried deep emotion. “I cried when I saw the results,” he said.

“After three years of training them from zero, to see their names there meant everything.”

The boys returned home with fourth-place medals around their necks and something even more valuable in their hearts.

Confidence.

“They realised that children from the countryside can also stand tall,” Hakimul said.

A date with legends

The team’s story soon reached cricket enthusiasts beyond Perak.

Among those moved by it was former national cricketeer Devindran Ramanathan, who is helping organise a special cricket celebration in Kuala Lumpur marking the 30th anniversary of Sri Lanka’s 1996 World Cup triumph.

When Devindran saw photos and videos of the boys playing in Ipoh, he knew they deserved a bigger opportunity.

“It was a wake-up call for me,” he said.

“A teacher who learned cricket earlier in life had the passion to introduce the sport to children in a school deep in Hulu Perak.”

His plan now is to bring about 20 youngsters from the team to Kuala Lumpur for the weekend of May 15 and 16.

The boys will attend a coaching clinic led by members of the Sri Lankan World Cup-winning side at the Royal Selangor Club Bukit Kiara ground.

Each player’s participation in the clinic requires sponsorship of RM500.

The organisers hope to raise at least RM10,000 to support the boys’ programmes and provide cricket equipment for them over the next three months.

The funds will be channelled through the Royal Selangor Club’s cricket section, which has established a dedicated tournament account.

Beyond the coaching clinic, the boys will also watch an exhibition T20 match featuring the Sri Lankan greats against a Rest of the World side.

The organisers also plan to show the boys around Kuala Lumpur and bring them to other cricket venues, including the ground in Bayuemas, Klang.

Devindran hopes the experience will inspire them to continue playing the sport.

“This is about giving them exposure and showing them what is possible,” he said.

Village dreams take flight

For Hakimul, the journey of his boys means more than medals.

In a quiet corner of rural Perak, the 26-year-old teacher has revived a tradition that once powered Malaysian sport — where schoolmasters doubled as coaches, mentors and talent scouts, nurturing athletes long before structured programmes arrived.

In Kemar, that spirit lives again.

The grass still grows unevenly. Wooden houses frame the field. The forest rises behind it.

But the boys who play there are no longer the same.

They have crossed rivers, travelled for hours to a city tournament, and heard a crowd cheer their names.

Soon they will step onto another field in Kuala Lumpur, where cricket legends will guide them.

Yet everything that brought them this far remains unchanged.

A group of boys. A teacher who believed in them. And a small village patch where every dream began with a simple swing of the bat.

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