Orang Asli boys chase cricket dreams, from jungle to city By Frankie D'Cruz

Young cricketers from Kemarian Cricket travel by boat from the interior of Hulu Perak before continuing their journey by road to Ipoh for the district schools tournament. (Hakimul Adry pic)

Free Malaysia Today : Schoolboys from a remote Perak village travelled hours by boat and road for their first cricket tournament. Next stop: Kuala Lumpur with Sri Lankan legends. PETALING JAYA: In a serene clearing surrounded by forest, the sound of a cricket ball striking wood echoes across a Orang Asli village in Hulu Perak.

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.

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